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THE 

RUSSIAN 

PEASANT 




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A Russian Peasant. 



Frontispiece. 



THE RUSSIAN 
PEASANT 



BY 

HOWARD P. KENNARD, M.D. 



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PHILADELPHIA 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

London : T. WERNER LAURIE. 

1908. 



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DEDICATED 

TO MY REVERED UNCLES 

ARTHUR AND WALTER KENNARD 

OF EAST FARLEIGH, KENT, 

WHOM MY BROTHERS AND I LOOK TO AS SONS TO 

A FATHER, AND TO WHOM WE OWE A DEBT 

OF GRATITUDE WE CAN NEVER 

HOPE TO REPAY. 

H. P. K. 



Samara, Russia, 

i^th May 1907. 



PREFACE 

The Author begs humbly to lay this short 
sketch of the " Russian Peasant " before the 
public. It by no means pretends to be a deep, 
comprehensive, critical study of the Peasant and 
the Peasant question ; that is reserved for a 
future work. It is indeed but the frame of the 
picture of the life-history of the teeming millions 
of those who form the real back-bone of Russia. 
The Author has gained his knowledge of 
the peasant from personal contact, and living 
with him in the villages in all parts of 
European Russia — in the more cultured West, 
from Petersburg to the limits of Poland ; in the 
frozen and scantily inhabited North ; in the 
immense district of Great Russia watered by 
Mother Volga from Kazan to the Caucasus, and 
in Siberia. He has studied him at peace in 
the simplicity and quiet of his village izha^ and 
has had the privilege of seeing him at war 

ix 



X PREFACE 

in the late Russo - Japanese conflict, and his 
marvellous qualities of patience and endurance 
there brought out. Further, the Author is at 
the present moment witnessing and working 
amongst the Peasantry, exposed to the horrors 
of an unprecedented famine, which has reduced 
more than 20,000,000 to starvation and disease. 
For historical information the Author has 
drawn upon the old records of Guy Fletcher, 
Anthony Jenkinson, the ancient Chronicles of 
Pskoff, the Records of the Troitsky Monastery, 
the Secret Memoirs of the Court of Catherine 
11.^ Moscovites Lettres^ the Memoirs of M. de 
Mannheim^ Karamsin's History of Russia^ and 
numerous antique documents in the Museums 
of Petersburg and Moscow. Further, he is in- 
debted to the works of Mr Geoffrey Drage, Sir 
Donald Mackenzie Wallace, M. Leroy Beaulieu, 
M. Wassielevski and Mr MorfiU ; and finally he 
wishes to express his grateful thanks for aid 
afforded to him in the past while travelling 
and working in Russia to his Excellency M. 
de Kerbedz and Madame Eugenie de Kerbedz, 



PREFACE xi 

whose friendship has been and is invaluable 
to him, and whose kindness and assistance 
he takes the opportunity of acknowledging 
with feelings of the deepest gratitude ; to 
Mr Montgomery Grove, the British Consul in 
Moscow, Prince Nicholas Scherbatofif, Mr Victor 
Marsden (the able correspondent of the Standard 
in Moscow), Prince Galitzin, Mr Gulkevitch, 
M. Tatarenoff, M. Nicholas Shishkoff, and his 
friend Mr L. A. R. Wallace, but for whom this 
book would never have been published ; also 
to the late Ambassador to St Petersburg, Sir 
Charles Hardinge, to whose aid in obtaining for 
him many special permissions, which made his 
travels and work easier, he is much indebted. 

With this preliminary message of thanks, the 
Author launches his little work, trusting that it 
will meet with the approbation of an indulgent 
and not too critical public. 

Howard P. Kennard, M.D. 



Samara, Russia, 
iTth May 1907. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. VILLAGE LIFE I 

II. HISTORY 133 

III. RUSSIA'S POISON— BUREAUCRACY AND CHURCH . 2o6 



I 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



A RUSSIAN PEASANT .... 

AN IZBA OF STAROSTA, OR HEADMAN . 
AN ISBA IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION. 

(In the foreground are shown Ancient 
Plough and Harrow.) 

THE COMING OF SPRING 

GROUP OF PEASANTS. (The Starosta 
(Headman) is second from the left.) 

PEASANT BOY .... 

A VILLAGE SHRINE 

PEASANT WOMEN . 

A SHEPHERD .... 

TYPE OF INTELLIGENT PEASANT 

Bleenkoff. (A peasant whose studies 
have extended beyond the literature 
of his own country. The works of 
Charles Dickens are familiar to him.) 

BLEENKOFF (one of Russia's peasant 
intellectuals) AND HIS wife . 

GROUP OF STAROSTAS. (Heads of 
Villages.) 

SIBERIAN PEASANTS . . . . 

REFUGE HUT, ON A DESOLATE MOOR . 
VILLAGE SCHOOL, AND PRIEST. (The 

school teacher is on the right of 
the picture.) 

SIBERIAN PEASANT AND HIS IZBA 
VILLAGE POLICEMEN .... 

RASKOLNIK PRIEST AND HIS CHOIR 



. Frontispiece 
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XV 



THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 



CHAPTER I 

VILLAGE LIFE 

Russia ! The very word breathes mystery to 
countless masses. France, Germany, India, Japan, 
America, Africa, Australia, even China — these 
are countries known of men ; but Russia bids 
one pause, breeding a sense of deep obscurity 
and vastness, conjuring to one's brain ideas of 
despotism, ignorance, and serfdom. To countless 
thousands the word is synonymous with secrecy 
and prison bars, Siberia and the knout. It is 
not without reason that the foreigner who knows 
little of Russia is impregnated with these ideas. 



2 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Throw enough mud, and some is sure to stick ; 
and surely enough mud has been thrown at un- 
fortunate Russia. Persistent rumour is generally 
bred of a nucleus of truth, and in Russia's case 
rumour has hardly exaggerated even infinite- 
simally the real facts. 

Travel towards the East, crossing the Volga, 
surmount the Urals' crests, and wander at will 
across Siberia's plains. There one may meet from 
time to time, marching with downcast head and 
weary feet, in silence — such terrible silence that 
intensifies the solitude of the limitless wastes — ^a 
gang of hapless exiles, wretched, ill-clad, and often 
bootless, exhausted with fatigue and lack of food — 
the melancholy creaking of the chains, the long, 
long line of brethren in despair, taking the place of 
Nature's sounds and scenes. No deep blue sky, no 
gladdening sun cheers their leaden hearts — and 
Hope is dead. No twittering birds stir their 
souls sunken in blank despair — only the music 
of the clanking chains, day in day out, from 
dawn to setting sun. Tread — tread — tread — 
wearily wandering, on they go, young and old, 
women and men, linked with the links of mutual 
agony : intellect and innocence bonded with 



VILLAGE LIFE 3 

sordid crime, refinement and culture with bestial 
ignorance and brutality — one long chain of 
mortals marching to their doom. 

Hope, spirit, lost ; home, family, name, things 
of the past ; despair alone printed indelibly on 
each face. Tramp — tramp — tramp go the stricken 
souls, and jarring in unison clang the jingling 
chains — Death's orchestra, playing .its prelude to 
rest eternal in some rough grave on Siberia's 
frozen waste, if God in His mercy grant them 
quick release, or else to life in a living tomb in 
the depths of the icebound mines! No picture 
this, bred of exaggerated impulse. Trains have 
brought powers of transport, until recently un- 
dreamt of, and the Siberian Railway takes to 
their destination many unfortunate exiles who 
otherwise would have died on the way. But the 
railway is useless as a means of transport to 
other more distant localities, desert spots away 
in the frozen North, where man thinks fit to 
send his fellow - man even in the twentieth 
century of the Christian Era. And so to-day 
one sees ever and anon these serpentine gangs 
of God's creatures slowly wending their way, 
mile after mile, day after day, week after week, 



4 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

till Death with its long gaunt finger beckons 
them to rest. 

Follow the line of one of these funeral caravans, 
and mark the little mounds that ever meet the 
eye, telling of rest of some poor soul whose life 
was strife and silent agony, one long vain fight 
for freedom, country — all that God gave man. 

Often have I paused and pondered amidst a little 
cluster of snow-clad tombs — a convict sepulchre : 
Who lies beneath that one? A stake driven 
beneath the frozen earth tells, it would seem, 
of efforts to mark the spot where sleeps some 
life-tormented soul. Was he a man of eminence, 
of world renown, of a talent that forced him 
on to action, compelled him to use the gifts 
bestowed on him to raise his stricken country 
from the mire, engulfed him in the whirl of 
politics and party strife, and finally sent him 
to spend his life in solitude, to waste his 
brilliant brain, his epigrams, his noble utterances, 
his thoughts and high ideals, on prison warders, 
— men but yet as beasts, the lowest criminals, 
dregs of humanity? Does he lie there, his 
proud, stricken heart broken with grief and with 
the knowledge that his life has been fruitless 



VILLAGE LIFE 5 

and of no avail? does he lie there, fallen thus 
early from the ranks of those his comrades — 
comrades whom nothing but this cruel system, 
this indiscriminate bondage of man to beast 
permitted by Russia's rulers, could possibly have 
made his? 

But this is only one picture, one aspect of 
Russia's life afforded to travellers who will dive 
into the unfathomable depths of this vast country. 
Russia is a country of contrasts and extremes — 
melancholy and yet gay, simple and even sweet, 
yet terrible, repulsive yet fascinating and seduc- 
tive, mysterious and yet open as the prairies of its 
own boundless steppes, old and yet young — yes, 
young as a new-born babe ; and all these contrasts 
and contradictions may be found reflected in the 
nature of Russia's people. Twist and turn it 
how one will, the predominant feeling stirred by 
the word Russia to-day is Mystery, and round it 
seems drawn a veil of impenetrable darkness, as 
if to repel all who would pierce that gloomy 
shroud, and gain knowledge of a land covering 
one-sixth of the habitable surface of the globe, 
and containing no less than 140,000,000, of four- 
fifths of whom literally nothing is known. Plain 



6 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

upon plain, steppe upon steppe, soil frozen 
eternally year's end to year's end, contrasting 
with rich black loam which no country in the 
world can rival — vast wastes — huge tracts — many 
of which even to-day are unvisited — are scantily 
peopled by degenerate beings, remnants of long 
since departed races — solitude so vast that it 
is impossible for the Western mind, which 
knows nothing of real solitude, to picture it. 

" There is noise in the capitals, the orators thunder, 
The war of words rages ; 
But there, in the depths of Russia, 
Is the silence of centuries. 
Only the wind gives no rest 
To the tops of the pine-trees along the road, 
And, kissing Mother Earth, 
The ears in the illimitable corn-fields 
Bend themselves in an arch." 

Thus the famous Russian poet Nekrassoff sings 
of his beloved country, which extends in one 
solid unbroken mass over 8,500,000 square miles 
of territory, stretching from the icebound Arctic 
seas washing its northern coasts to the shores 
of the Black Sea — from the Baltic's coasts and 
the borders of Germany, Austria, and the Balkan 
States across the plains of Eastern Europe and 



VILLAGE LIFE 7 

the endless miles of frozen Siberian steppe to the 
warm waters of the Pacific, thus pressing with 
its ever - expanding sides on to the borders of 
Sweden, the cultured West, Turkey, Afghanistan, 
China, and Manchuria, and enclosing within its 
frontiers 140,000,000 of people. Yet till a very 
few years back this vast land was as a closed 
book, beyond the power of the outside world to 
read, and the outside world ignorant as a child of 
all but its very name. Why this astounding ignor- 
ance ? It would suggest a lack of interest on the 
part of the Western nations, or else some deep 
cause emanating from the heart of Russia itself. 

Firstly, of what is the Russian people composed? 
A country populated to the extent of 140,000,000, 
to which at the present time 2,000,000 is added 
every succeeding year, conveys to the ordinary mind 
visions of a Power which should long ago have 
made itself felt from world's end to world's end, 
the more so seeing that those millions are of the 
white race. Forty times the size of France — 
140,000,000 of inhabitants. Where are these 
masses distributed ? and of what are they con- 
stituted ? Fifteen millions belong to the towns 
— the Governmental, professional, official, and 



8 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

social classes ; 3,000,000 are to be found working 
in the different manufactories throughout the 
country ; whilst to these must be added another 
7,000,000 composed of those working on the 
railways, the minor provincial officials of all 
departments, the proprietors, and all who can 
claim to be counted as intelligent, intellectual 
members of the community. Another 15,000,000 
must be assigned to the thousand and one tribes 
of heterogeneous race distributed over Russia's 
wide expanse — Finns, Tartars, Caucasians, Laps, 
Samoyedes, Mongols, Bashkers, Voliaks, Tchere- 
misses — their name is Legion. 

Forty millions accounted for — where are the rest? 
Where is this overwhelming mass of 100,000,000 
which cannot be classed amongst the tribes of 
varied blood and breed congregated on Russian 
soil, and cannot lay claim to be numbered amongst 
those who have ordinary intelligence ? Does Europe 
know them ? No ! Does Russia — that Russia 
represented by the governing, professional, social, 
and commercial classes — know them ? A thousand 
times — No! Who are they then? The answer 
is simple and pathetic in its simplicity: they 
belong to one class, and one class alone — the 



VILLAGE LIFE 9 

Russian Peasant — a body of men, 100,000,000 
strong, of whom nothing is known. I say nothing, 
but I must qualify that statement, for during the 
past four eventful decades the attention of Russia's 
governing and intellectual classes has been drawn 
perforce to this previously neglected horde of 
human beings, which during centuries past has 
held quantitatively an overwhelming position, 
qualitatively none. 

The first note was sounded by the Emperor 
Alexander II. in his speech to the Nobles of 
Moscow (March 1856). Beginning with a protec- 
tive negative, as it were, he ends with a hint of 
such unmistakable meaning, that his real intentions 
are immediately revealed to the gathering : 

" For the removal of certain unfounded reports, 
I consider it necessary to declare to you that I 
have not at present the intention of annihilating 
serfdom ; but certainly, as you yourselves know, 
the existing manner of possessing serfs cannot 
remain unchanged. It is better to abolish serfdom 
from above than to await the time when it will 
begin to abolish itself from below. I request you, 
gentlemen, to consider how this can be put into 
execution, and to submit my words to the Noblesse 
for their consideration." 

Ominous words. No pleading request this from 



10 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

a Constitutional monarch or Republican president, 
but a cold, autocratic demand from a man hold- 
ing limitless power over Russia and Russia's 
people, a demand admitting of no doubt as to its 
real meaning, and allowing of no contra-arguments, 
uttered as it was by the lips of that omnipotent 
of all omnipotent beings on this earth, the Tzar 
of all the Russias, whose very breath is law. 

The die then was cast, and Serfdom from that 
moment was doomed, and from that moment has 
the "peasant horde" thrust itself day after day, 
year after year, more prominently before the 
public and official eye of Russia, until now the 
peasant is recognised not only as a factor which 
must be taken into account, not only as a class 
for which legislative steps of the most statesman- 
like nature must be taken, but as the predominant 
feature of the Russian problem to-day — the actual 
key to the situation. 

Russia awakes to-day like some prehistoric 
mammoth which for long centuries has slept, 
its huge unwieldy carcass wallowing in the mire, 
and growing with the growth of time, its vast 
exterior becoming ever vaster at the expense of 
those around it. To-day she wakes and shakes 



VILLAGE LIFE it 

herself, only to find that Time, while ever adding 
to her outward form, has allowed her very sap to 
remain stagnant, neglected, undeveloped. For this 
sap — Russia's life — Russia's real self — is nothing 
less than the Russian peasant, whose mind during 
centuries has been swamped in the dense morasses 
of ignorance, whose very existence as a man has 
been denied, and who has taken his place humbly 
and with a patience which Russians alone possess, 
from father to son through countless generations, 
as a working thing — an IT — on a level with the 
beasts of the field ! 

What is he like to-day? Come with me on 
my sleigh across the Russian snow, that eternal 
white mantle adorning the country for two-thirds 
of the year, and let me show you this strange 
individual. Wrapped in our furs, enclosing not 
only body but head and face, leaving but the 
eyes and tip of the nose exposed to the thirty 
degrees of frost, made keener by the faint breath 
of a north-east wind, we are drawn rapidly along 
by our couple of horses. The hard glistening 
snow grinds out its creaking music with each 
fresh blow struck by the horses' hoofs, and our 
sleigh glides noiselessly along, drawn seemingly 



12 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

without an effort on the part of the magnificent 
brutes who need not the " Noo Noo : Malootka 
moy (my little one), Noo Noo — eete (get along)," 
uttered in persuasively seductive tones by the 
voice of our driver, as he sits with arms out- 
stretched, a rein in either hand, trusting to voice 
alone to urge the animals on. On, on we glide, 
with a sense of luxury which only a swiftly 
running sleigh and rich warm furs can give, till 
suddenly Ivan, our driver, fills the air with shouts : 
" Berege, Berege : noo, doorak : Berege " (" Look 
out now, fool, look out)." There is no response, 
and with a supreme effort Ivan forces the striving, 
straining horses back upon their haunches, and 
they madly paw the air in vain effort to continue 
their headlong flight. " Berege Berege," shouts he in 
stentorian voice : " Pravo " (" To the right ") ; but 
there is no response. 

We stop dead, and glancing beyond our horses' 
heads, we see a broad, low-lying wooden sleigh, 
triangular in shape, and all lined with straw, on 
which lies full length a seemingly inanimate thing. 
Ivan with his whip, which is rarely used except on 
such occasions as these, bestows with all his force 
some half-dozen blows on this object, and as a 



VILLAGE LIFE 13 

result the thing awakes, and discloses itself to our 
gaze as a human being. 

'Tis he — the being we are in search of — the 
Russian Peasant ! A long sheepskin coat, origin- 
ally of a yellowish brown, but now a polished, 
dirty mahogany hue, crumpled and creased by 
age, and veneered with a greasy shine born of 
the wear of years ; a cord about the middle ; a pair 
of enormous feet and ankles encased in voluminous 
folds of felt, with strips of leather for soles, the 
whole encircled with strands of cord ; a high- 
peaked pyramidal sheepskin cap, from under the 
brim of which protrude here and there wisps of 
an unkempt shaggy head of hair and tawny 
yellow beard ; a pair of vacant, lustreless eyes, and 
the tip of a broad-spread nose. 

This is our friend the peasant. Imagine him 
thus, and you have a faithful picture in your 
mind's eye of the peasai.t as he is during the 
greater part of his annual existence — that is to 
say, during seven long wintry months, with 
perhaps a month on either side of that period ; 
for according to his ideas, the summer is only a 
chance interval, a sort of Nature's mistake, during 
which he comes out from amidst the depths of his 



14 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

reeking bedding, from sheer inability to bear the 
heat, and hastens with feverish glee to wallow in 
its warmth again at least a month before there is 
any need, only relieving his body of its inexpres- 
sibly dirty and foul environments when four weeks 
of the warm suns of Spring have melted the snow. 

This is our friend whom we have waked from 
his slumbers. He hears no speech, he sees 
no scenes, he is incapable of observation, he 
possesses no understanding, his brain never works 
except in reference to objects that hit him 
between the eyes — but he simply does — does like 
a beast of burden, knowing neither the why nor 
the wherefore, neither asking nor expecting to 
be asked, neither knowing nor wanting to know; 
lying listlessly full length on his rude wooden 
sleigh loaded with wood, and drawn by an 
emaciated apology for a horse. Wearied long 
since by his overwhelming load, he plods across 
the wintry snows, looking neither to right nor 
left, his head bowed down — dreaming — sleeping 
— oblivious to all sights and sounds, winds and 
weather — sheep-skin without, sheep's brains within. 

Is this a type of the Russian peasant ? you ask. 
It is, and the type par excellence^ if one excepts 



VILLAGE LIFE 15 

certain differences of visage, dialect, and customs, 
to be found throughout the whole extent of the 
Russian Empire to-day. 

What can be put to the credit side of the 
account of this unfortunate creature? He has 
simplicity in overwhelming abundance — faith, 
trust, obedience to authority which he himself 
really believes in — all blended with an innate 
cunning bred of his very ignorance, and fostered 
by instincts of self-preservation, which only too 
often lead his poor deluded judgment hopelessly 
astray — a cunning which has led many superficial 
observers to believe that he has a formed intelli- 
gence. No greater mistake was ever made. He 
has not. 

Much intercourse with the Russian peasant has 
convinced me that that head, covered with shaggy 
hair, whatever it may have in it, is at present 
an unworked mine. There is wealth there, only 
waiting to be exploited by broad, liberal educa- 
tional measures of a yet-to-be-created enlightened 
Government, but — he must himself wake first; 
he must himself produce the first spark ; the 
spark of individual effort must show its long- 
awaited light before the world can gauge with 



i6 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

even the faintest degree of exactitude what is or 
is not hidden within that skull of apparently im- 
penetrable density, into which nothing enters and 
from which nothing intelligible ever makes its exit. 
I speak broadly of the Russian peasant — the 
ordinary everyday specimen, and not of the 
exceptions. Amongst ioo,ocx),ooo there are 
many to whom my description is not applic- 
able; it would be indeed a marvel if amidst 
these millions there were not a few exceptions 
— but they are few and far between, and com- 
paratively insignificant drops in the ocean. It 
is these exceptions of whom the world hears as 
getting up political agitations in the villages, 
taking part in and organising sober assemblies, 
at which the rights of man, the condition of 
the country, the needs of the peasantry are 
sagely discussed ; it is these exceptions which 
one hears of as being elected to the electoral 
colleges for the Imperial Duma — and actually for 
that Imperial Duma itself; and it is these isolated 
facts that prompt the uninitiated in Russian affairs, 
and more especially in the affairs of Russia's 
peasantry, to run away with the idea that that type 
represented at the above - mentioned assemblies 



VILLAGE LIFE 17 

or at the Duma, is a true and everyday type 
of the great Russian peasant class. No greater 
mistake could possibly be made. The true 
peasant is uncultured, uneducated, ignorant of the 
most elementary facts known to babes in other 
countries of the West and East, thoughtless, and 
buried in the mire of stagnant callousness and 
hopeless indifference. 

In my wanderings amongst the western districts 
of Russia during the past few months, I have 
alone aided medicinally 1300 peasants ; and whilst 
treating their bodies I have in each case carefully 
investigated the condition of their minds. Of 
these 1300, composed of Russians, Letts, and 
Poles, 80 were able to read and write a little, 
— that is, 6 per cent. ; but subtracting the Poles 
and Letts from the number, I find that the per- 
centage of the actual Russian peasantry able to 
read and write is 2. 

My investigations in Central Russia, in the 

Government of Orel, last year gave a slightly 

better percentage. There, out of any given 

hundred, 4 as a general rule could read and write, 

but the area of distribution of these men of 

letters varied immensely. Sometimes one would 

B 



i8 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

find a village of about 700 to 2000 inhabitants 
where 10 per cent, could read the paper, while 
again on many occasions, on inquiring from such 
people as the priest, the village merchant, and 
amongst the peasants themselves, as to the 
literary capacities of the inhabitants, I obtained 
the astounding answer : " No one can read or 
write here " — and this in villages with populations 
ranging from 500 to 2500! Reasons for this 
lamentable and almost incredible ignorance are 
not far to seek, and these I shall allude to in 
a later part of this little work. I will only say 
here that the Russian Governments of the past, 
and past wielders of the Russian Sceptre, are 
badly — very badly — to blame. 

Where does the peasant eke out his existence ? 

With your hand shading your eyes from the 
dazzling sparkle of the snow, glance to those 
neighbouring hillocks by the frozen lake, and you 
will see a cluster of white dots on the still whiter 
landscape, which stretches in one monotonous 
sheet as far as the eye can see, and on, on, far 
beyond the limits of the snow-capped horizon, over 
the whole vast land of Russia. If one could peep 
beneath these coverlets of white, one would 



VILLAGE LIFE 19 

find that this straggling zigzag collection of tiny 
specks is nothing less than a mass of dilapidated 
wooden tenements. A few black beams un- 
covered by snow at the side of this or that izba^ 
together with here and there the curl of blue 
smoke, alone tell us that this melancholy white 
mass, buried beneath the snow, braving in solitude 
the wintry blasts that sweep over the desert, is 
indeed a collection of human habitations. There, 
sparkling in the sun above the lowly roofs, is a 
golden ball topped with cross and crescent sur- 
mounting the blue-roofed church, emblem of that 
religion which almost co-equally with the Govern- 
ment itself has so much to account for in the 
condition of the peasant to-day. 

Let us accost one of the inhabitants who is going 
towards the village, and visit his home with him. 
He turns to gaze on us with open mouth, and in 
response to our salutation says '^Zdrazbyete" 
(" Good morning "), at the same time raising his hat 
from off his shaggy locks, and retaining it in his 
hands for the space of half a minute despite the 
bitter cold, disclosing his features, and showing us 
the type most common to the Russian peasant — 
a low, broad forehead, lined horizontally with deep 



20 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

furrows, surmounting a large nose broadening 
towards the nostrils, but withal well proportioned, 
and a mouth, thick - lipped, coarse, and large, 
hidden amidst the entangled hairs of his reddish 
moustache and beard. " Zdrazbyetel^ says he, and 
with the greatest affability, in response to our 
request, offers to escort us to his home. 

A visit, in winter for choice, to one of these 
villages would prove a novelty indeed to dwellers 
in more fortunate lands, where civilisation and 
education have comparatively raised the toilers 
of the fields and dwellers in town and hamlet to 
a state of absolute luxury. 

Most people would turn away with a shudder 
when only within smelling distance (if I may coin 
such a vulgar expression) of a Russian village ; 
but there are many to whom the interests of the 
poor are a real source of anxiety and solicitude, 
and it is these that I ask to come with me now. 
We will endeavour to make the everyday life of 
the Russian peasant, that almost mediaeval person, 
as much as possible an open book. 

Along the narrow, snow-covered, sleigh-beaten 
track leading to the village we jolt, for one of 
the peculiarities of all fairly frequented roads or 



VILLAGE LIFE 21 

paths in Russia, is the number of deep holes and 
hollows. The reason for these might seem rather 
a puzzle to the uninitiated, but in reality the ex- 
planation is simplicity itself. Before the snow falls 
the road is marked already here and there with 
small depressions ; then given a fall of snow, and 
then a continuous traffic of broad flat peasants' 
sleighs over the surface, one will soon observe 
that in proportion as the snow falls, the deeper 
these holes or " dirries " become. A biting side wind 
completes the business, and it is common to see, a 
few days after the winter snows have appeared, a 
continuous series of these dirries transforming 
the well-worn cross-country paths into ups and 
downs more like a switchback than anything else. 

Along one of these we now wend our way 
under a brilliant sun, and there in full view, lying 
in the hollow amidst the hillocks, are the roofs of 
the village we are in search of 

The first sight to strike the traveller's eye in 
every village throughout Russia is the golden 
dome of the village church, and it gives food for 
thought. Comparisons crowd upon the mind. 
This brilliant spectacle — this noble edifice raising 
its head from amidst the most incredible squalor — 



22 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

what is it here for? What good does it do to 
these wretched beings to see a sparkling diamond 
from which it is impossible for them to obtain 
food for their hungry children, let alone religious 
comfort for their souls? Of what benefit is it, 
think you, for these poor wretches to gaze on 
this showy outside, and be told that it is the 
emblem of the Church and the House of God, 
when in some villages they may frequently see 
His minister as drunk as one of the lowest of 
his parishioners, or indulging in peculations and 
shameful bargains, such as we should associate with 
the riff-raff of London and Continental cities ? 

The interior of these edifices — regarded as 
places of religion, for the practice of meditation 
or for the receiving of spiritual food — is even 
more of a delusion. All is glittering, all is 
mystery, all is calculated and purposely cal- 
culated, and has been purposely calculated for 
centuries past by the priesthood, to breed in the 
simple peasant mind superstition and fear rather 
than devotion. All is show, inside and out. A 
peasant of intelligence, entering into this brilliant 
building, hoping to find consolation in trouble, 
might be likened to a starving child outside a 



VILLAGE LIFE 23 

large pastry-shop, where the rich viands are 
only for show. The interior of the Russian 
church is the same. The odours of the incense, 
the overwhelming display of golden ikons or 
sacred images, the decoration here, there, every- 
where, like sugar on the surface of a rich cake, 
fills the mind with wonderment, but leaves the 
heart unsatisfied. These buildings, which are 
such a picturesque addition to the landscape, 
are the outward sign of that institution, the 
Russian Orthodox Church, which, in combination 
with the Bureaucracy, has done more to degrade 
the unfortunate peasant than anything else we can 
name. Show inside — show outside — nothing more. 

But here we are in the village proper : a zigzag, 
straggling row of broken-down, lop-sided, wooden 
hovels, stretching as far as the eye can reach on 
either side of the snow-beaten switchback road. 
Method is absent. Each built his little izba or 
cottage where and how he thought fit — this way, 
that way ; front to the east, front to the west — 
anyhow, and apparently without rhyme, reason, 
or forethought. 

Many of my readers may have seen the 
Irish cabin ; these are superior to the Russian 



24 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

izba in many ways. Take one. The Irish cabin 
is, at any rate, blessed with a chimney. You 
may look in vain in many a Russian village 
for a chimney in the tumble-down izba^ and the 
village we are about to visit is no exception to 
the rule. A chimney there, surmounting the 
village lavka or spirit-shop ; another there, on the 
house of the priest ; and perhaps one or two 
gracing those rather superior houses, the domiciles 
of the village starosta or chief of the village — a 
gentleman who can generally spell out a few 
words if you give him time, and who perhaps has 
heard of the existence of other countries besides 
Russia, and may even have a semi - intelligent 
interest in the so - called " elections " for that 
institution gilded with that terribly impressive 
name, the Imperial Governmental Duma. On 
the izbas of such of the village intellectuals as 
these I have named you may see chimneys, but 
you may look in vain for any others. True, 
standing apart from the village there is a house 
of stone, quite equal in construction to many of 
our London suburban villas ; but this is the dwell- 
ing of the pomiestchik^ or proprietor, of whom we 
shall have a few words to say later. 




Izba of 5tarosta (or Headman). 




Izba in course of construction. 

In the foreground are shown ancient plough and harrow. 



^ 



VILLAGE LIFE 25 

Our business now is to visit the peasant in his 
home, that peasant whom we see every now and 
then peering from behind a small foot-square pane 
of glass at us as we drive through the main and 
only street of the village, conducted by our lately- 
made peasant acquaintance. Our friend suddenly 
stops outside a roofless, dilapidated, snow-buried 
construction, and with a gesture and in a voice in 
which we can almost detect a touch of pride, 
says : " Pozhalovesta^ gospoda " (" Please, gentle- 
men "), and with a wave of the hand signifies that 
that is his home, which he invites us to enter. 

Huge stones and clods of earth, apparently cast 
down without any attention to the artistic, form an 
elevated basement, on which long planks of timber 
rest, to form the floor of the dwelling. The walls 
are constructed by placing one upon the other 
trunks of trees grooved crescentically in order to fit 
dovetailed into those below. Between the crevices 
are stuffed masses of tow and moss. The roof is 
formed of planks, on which is laid a very inferior 
thatching ; but generally none at all is to be seen, 
for frequently this same thatching is needed as 
fodder for the cattle, and so gradually disappears. 
The wooden structure rises perhaps eight feet from 



26 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

the ground, and encloses an area of 14 to 20 feet 
square, more or less, according to whether the 
hut has two rooms or one. 

Outside this dwelling we stand gazing in 
wonderment, until our friend again bids us enter, 
which we proceed to do, while imagination builds 
for us a picture of what the interior of such a 
structure must be like. Reader, you may build 
and build with the phantom bricks of phantasy a 
picture of what to you would seem the extreme 
limits of poverty - stricken dirt and squalor, but 
you will never succeed in successfully portray- 
ing to your mind's eye a true representation of 
the interior of a Russian peasant's izba. I will 
endeavour to paint it for you, but feel myself 
hopelessly incompetent to give you a really 
faithful picture. 

To obtain a true and life - lasting impression 
of this worst of all holes in which human beings 
of the white race — and Europeans withal — live, 
it is necessary to visit these haunts personally. 
There lies the door, a massive piece of timber 
four feet high, surmounted by a solid beam ; 
a triangular piece of iron the handle. Pushing 
this door open, we step over the threshold, at the 



I 



VILLAGE LIFE 27 

same time bending low for fear that our brains 
shall be dashed out against the lop-sided trunk 
overarching the narrow entrance. Clang goes 
the door behind us, and we find ourselves like 
mice in a trap — our feet enveloped beyond the 
ankles in farmyard slush, while utter darkness 
bids us stand fast, fearful of falling out of what 
is evidently nothing less than a dungyard into 
what might prove to be a sewer. Whirr ! whirr ! 
flutter innumerable wings of birds above us, while 
debris falls in heaps upon our hapless heads. 
Between our legs rushes in headlong flight some 
animal which on reflection we take to be a pig, 
while others of the same species, and a terror- 
stricken goat and yet more alarmed fowls, scatter 
themselves this way, that way, vainly endeavour- 
ing to hide themselves from what they take to be 
the pursuing hand of man. 

Our eyes at last become accustomed to the dense 
darkness, and we see a tub in one corner, beams 
athwart the roof, on which perch the members 
of the feathered tribe disturbed by our entrance. 
Puddles of insanitary messes reflect a dull light, 
while from the same pools of filth rises an un- 
utterable stench. These our friend the peasant 



28 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

bids us mind, but we need no warning ; having 
tasted the entree^ we feel that we know what to 
expect. Vanity of man ! We pride ourselves on 
the fact of having been bold enough to brave 
the unknown horrors of a peasant hut, and flatter 
ourselves that the worst is over. 

Wait ! — that door at the side leads apparently into 
another apartment, if we can speak thus respectfully 
of this insanitary den. We push and push again at 
this solid wooden structure, rather larger than the 
corresponding outside one ; but our efforts are of 
no avail till aid from the inside is afforded us, 
and the door bursts open, exposing us to such an 
atmosphere that drives us back into the darkness 
of the outside room — rolls of vapour, impregnated 
with the most unutterable odours ; superheated, 
dense, vitiated, unventilated streams of air rush 
through the outlet afforded by the open door, 
enveloping us in such an indescribable stench that 
we can do nothing more than gasp in horror, and 
cover our noses with our hands in vain attempts 
to shut out the evil smell ! We are permeated 
through and through by the death-laden gust of 
abomination, and are filled with a feeling of un- 
utterable repulsion that temporarily deprives us 



VILLAGE LIFE 29 

of courage and power to proceed. But the die 
is cast ; pride forces our unwilling footsteps on, 
and summoning all the resolution that is left in 
us, we literally cut our way through the rolls of 
nauseating vapour, and the door shutting behind 
our hesitating figures, leaves us in a steaming 
hole inexpressibly fouler than that we have just 
left. We stand cut off from outside air, from light 
— in utter darkness — subjected to conditions under 
which it would seem impossible for human beings 
to exist. The dense fumes of smoke and steam 
deprive us at first of all power of sight, but 
gradually, as our eyes become more accustomed to 
the unnatural surroundings, we begin to perceive 
to what our curiosity has led us. 

Looming through the stifling sickly mist appears 
a large white block of stone, taking up a third of 
the tiny room, and rising about five feet from the 
floor. This is the oven, an indispensable necessity 
to the peasant. From this rises a leaden pipe, 
which suddenly bends at right angles, and passing 
parallel to the ceiling, traverses a hole over the 
top of the door, and gives an exit to the steam, 
if considered necessary to provide an exit for it, 
into the outer apartment. A hole made in the 



30 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

pipe, covered at will by a strip of lead, admits 
the steam when required into this, the room par 
excellence of the Russian izba, and supplies both 
the heat and comfort. 

We have said before that there is no chimney 
in the ordinary izba. The steam, as shown above, 
finds vent within, and the wretched inmates not 
only wallow like pigs in this pestilential atmo- 
sphere, blended of the excretory putrescences 
exhaled from the bodies of men and animals — for 
there lies a pig, and yet again fowls! — but he 
actually utilises it at times for the purpose of a 
vapour bath. He loves this vapour-laden con- 
dition — he has been brought up in it ; it is to 
him as the breezes of the hills and dales are to 
the hardy Scot, and he would be lost without it. 
It breeds a sense of cosy well-being in him. One 
can say, without the slightest exaggeration, that he 
loves this foul-smelling, nauseating hell far better 
than the limitless expanse of fresh air outside. 
He is part and parcel of his own filth-sodden izba. 

The stove, besides acting the part of vapour 
and warmth producer, is used as a kitchener, in 
which everything is cooked, and as a sort of open 
wardrobe on which everything is laid to keep 



VILLAGE LIFE 31 

warm. Further, it is used as a public bed for 
the family, for on the top of this sleep during the 
night, and frequently during the long winter days, 
men, women, and children — as many as can crowd 
on its broad, accommodating surface. Here they 
congregate in a huddled mass — man with wife, 
brother with sister, and as often as not a son 
will marry and escort his spouse to the top of the 
self-same stove, there to take her place amongst 
her newly-found relatives, and add yet one more 
human item to the already overcrowded izba. 
Pigs, lambs, fowls, lie where they may, and all are 
covered with loathsome parasites of varied breed, 
of which the peasant takes not the faintest notice. 
Custom has inured him to their attacks, and so 
the disgusting reptiles live their life unimpeded 
year in, year out. Fresh air there is none, except 
that occasionally admitted throughout the out- 
side door, and " filtered " through the comparative 
purity of the outside room. 

A small 12- to 14- square-inch pane of glass 
provides a window, incapable of being opened, 
and too small to do more than admit the very 
faintest rays of light which, entering, streak the 
scanty furniture — a tub, a table, bench, and a few 



32 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

cooking utensils of iron and wood. Other means 
of light there are not. Light, air — two of the 
greatest necessities for human existence, human 
cleanliness, human morality — are thus denied to 
these wretched creatures. From day to day, night 
after night, from year to year, they live — father, 
mother, brother, sister, babies — in this vitiated 
hell, herded together in this the sleeping, sitting, 
and working room of the Russian izba^ deprived 
of God's air, God's light, and ignorant, as we under- 
stand it, of even God's presence ! 

It is true that if we look into the farther corner 
facing the door of every izba we shall never fail 
to find an ikon — a semi-pictorial, half-length repre- 
sentation of the Madonna, covered all but the face 
and hands with some metal, generally tin. This 
is the emblem of their religion, a religion which 
influences through terror rather than through love. 
For them religion spells superstition, a subject I 
shall return to later ; but I have said enough to 
show that it would be wonderful indeed, seeing 
the state in which they exist, if purity prevailed, 
or if morality held sway. For when did morality 
ever go hand in hand with filth? Whence can 
come the admiration for God's beneficence when 



VILLAGE LIFE 33 

superstition is the single item of knowledge they 
have learned from their priests, who, until but 
recently, were themselves, hardly without excep- 
tion, a disgrace to their cloth and models of 
immorality? Whence can come veneration for 
Nature and the Creator's greatness when for 
centuries the peasant class has lived, wallowing 
in filth inside their homes, without the shadow 
of a suspicion of education or enlightenment pro- 
vided for them by the ruling powers, and have 
been subjected to a tyranny, up till 1861 — the date 
of the Emancipation — without a parallel in the 
history of the world? I say up till 1 861, one 
might say up till 1907, and be guilty of small 
exaggeration, for the efforts of the Bureaucratic 
regime are still constantly directed towards the 
placing of obstructions in the path of peasant 
enlightenment, efforts so ably seconded by the 
hands of a ruthless and brutal police, and a more 
brutal soldiery, and also last, but not least, by 
the clergy. I therefore feel justified in declaring 
that little, if any, advance has been made in the 
treatment of the peasants since the reign of 
Catherine the Second. Then why wonder at the 
peasant's condition? why wonder at his izba? 

C 



34 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

why wonder at anything in connection with him 
or his pitiful existence ? To - day he merely 
"exists," and continues this existence in the 
tumble-down ruin we have described. 

But izbas vary as does the region. In the north, 
where the soil is bad, but where there is mucli 
wood, the cottage is necessarily made of wood. In 
the south, where the soil is better but wood is 
scarce, stone supplies the material — and here the 
best izbas are seen ; but in the centre of Russia, 
where the rich black earth or Tchernoziom, the 
best soil in the world, is found, there is neither 
wood nor stone, but one vast prairie. Here the 
izbas are constructed of thin wood brought from 
afar, and roofed mainly with straw — all is of 
straw, the stables, sheds, all. 

But there are two pictures we must look at: 
the izba in autumn and the izba in spring. 
At the former period they are newly thatched, 
and bear, if not actually a luxurious, at any rate 
a neat and clean appearance ; but in spring, after 
the troubles and trials of the terrible winter, 
when the rye has long ago been taken to market, 
and the remainder has gone in payment of taxes, 
when there is no more hay, and the animals are 



VILLAGE LIFE 35 

emaciated skeletons — what is to be done? Only- 
one thing remains — to denude the roofs of straw 
and give it to the poor starving animals. 

But in times of sickness the Russian izha 
becomes even more insupportable than I have 
described. It has been my custom, while travelling 
through the country, to have always a supply of 
drugs handy for the benefit of the sick or starv- 
ing peasant, and the utter misery that has been 
presented to my eyes would, if I could paint 
the conditions of existence in these huts, draw 
tears from a stone. We are face to face now 
with a famine of almost unparalleled magnitude, 
and now is the time that philanthropists, those 
who have the means, must open their hearts 
and purse-strings. 

Let me quote from the letter of a Russian 
gentleman (Mr Shishkin) to the Times only a 
few days back. Says he : 

" Hundred of thousands of people are on the 
verge of starvation ; both scurvy and typhus, those 
inseparable companions of famine, are commenc- 
ing their fell work. In more than 25 provinces 
the crops have been far below the average, and 
in eight or ten of them there has been virtually 
no harvest whatever. In our vast province of 



36 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Samara, for instance, the average quantity of grain 
harvested in 1906 is less than 100 lbs. per 
acre, or less than half the grain sown. And 
3,000,000 people have to live a year on such a 
crop ! The terrible drought that brought on this 
result has also destroyed nearly all the grass, and 
arrested the growth of even this miserable quantity 
of cereals, so that our peasants have neither hay nor 
straw. Not only are the people reduced to starva- 
tion, but their only hope for the future — their 
working cattle — is rapidly perishing. As far back 
as two months ago more than 200,000 horses and 
85,000 milch cows had been killed or had perished 
in this one province, the loss in certain districts 
ranging from 20 to 34 per cent. Can English 
readers realise that a family of eight persons — five 
of them grown up — can live a whole year on 
rather less than one shilling a day? Well, that 
is the average cost of our peasants' food when 
the harvest has been fairly good. What makes 
the life of a Russian peasant especially bitter 
during a year like this one is not only the 
want of food. He has to suffer all the other ills 
consequent on utter destitution. Hunger forces 
him to sell off all his belongings — his warm 
clothes, his utensils, his last cattle, sometimes 
his cottage, and but too often his future crops 
and his labour. The outbuildings, the cattle 
pens, and empty barns are used up as fuel 
during the cruel frosts of our Russian winter, for 
where there is no money for food there is none 



VILLAGE LIFE 37 

to spare for fuel. Often two or three families 
crowd together in one log- house about 20 feet 
square, and demolish the other cottages to feed 
the one remaining stove. One must see this to 
understand all the misery that a human being 
can endure before he gives up the weary struggle 
for existence. 

" The unfortunate peasantry, after selling all that 
can be sold, try to eke out their last supply of 
rye flour, or millet, by mixing all kinds of eatable 
but useless ingredients with it — bran, grass seeds, 
chaff, and even straw. This autumn thousands of 
persons lived for weeks on acorns, parched and 
ground up with a small quantity of rye or wheat, 
and eaten either as a porridge, or baked into hard 
black cakes. Often the husks of the acorns were 
mixed with meal, to add to the volume of this 
awful food. I strongly doubt whether any animal 
would touch this stuff, which was doled out in 
small portions even to the weak children. The 
last resource of the famished people is to lie 
motionless day and night, as every movement 
trebles the pains of hunger. What wonder that 
a very few months of such a diet end in wholesale 
epidemics of typhus and scurvy ? " 

Thus writes Mr Shishkin, and every word of 
this sad history I can confirm from personal 
experience. Let me give but one sad instance, 
which I can take from numberless cases of a like 
nature. 



38 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Just previous to the real beginning of winter I 
was informed of a village in which famine was 
beginning to be prevalent, and scurvy was breaking 
out. I travelled thither on my sleigh to see what 
could be done. The village proved to be a 
wretched collection of huts, in the middle of a 
swamp formed of half-melted masses of snow 
and morasses of mud. In one of the worst spots 
lay a low tumble-down ruin, its roof a collection of 
loose planks, and denuded of the thatching that 
once graced its summit. There was no chimney. 

The entrance to this dwelling by a small wooden 
door, which was reached by dint of tramping 
through ponds of mud slush reaching to one's 
knees, was so small that it was necessary to crouch 
low to negotiate it. Having entered, one found 
oneself enveloped, as usual, in thick clouds of foul- 
smelling vapour. Lying on a mass of straw 
distributed over a wooden bench lay a wretched, 
emaciated girl of seventeen years of age, half clad 
and inexpressibly dirty, the vermin crawling un- 
heeded over her trunk and limbs, while, to my 
horror, I noticed batches of bloated flies tumbling 
over one another in their efforts to feed on the 
sores left bare by the loathsome parasites. Her 



VILLAGE LIFE 39 

hectic cheeks and sunken eyes, together with a 
hacking cough, told their tale : the girl was dying 
of phthisis, preceded by famine and scurvy. 
At a slightly higher level, on the stove itself 
were a baby and a yoi^ng child of three to four 
years old, enveloped in loathsome rags, while close 
up against them were a couple of fowls. On the 
floor, not three feet from the dying girl, was a young 
calf lying in a heap of dirty straw commingled 
with manure, while still more fowls were to be 
seen perched on points of vantage on the cross- 
bars of the tiny roof. 

This was not all. In another corner of the 
room was a lad, likewise dying of starvation, the 
victim of typhus and scurvy — his face drawn and 
pale, his gums painfully tender, blood oozing from 
them at the slightest pressure, and his teeth loose 
in their sockets; unable to eat anything solid, 
even if it were provided for him ; too weak to 
move, too weak to speak ; his legs swollen, angry 
spots on the skin causing the most intense 
itching and pain, and a blue-black condition of 
the skin surface caused by the rupture of superficial 
blood-vessels. In places the distended skin had 
burst, leaving large open sores. The boy's breath 



40 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

smelt unbearably, and the best and most charitable 
thing one could wish him was a speedy release 
from his sufferings in this world. 

Further, in various stages of undress, were to 
be counted no less than six other human beings 
— three children, with their mother, all in a state 
of indescribable filth and pitiful emaciation, 
their hair matted in hopeless entanglement, and 
cemented by the matter exuding from unsightly 
sores, evidently of long standing. I questioned 
the family, and discovered that their breadwinner, 
the father and husband, had died for his country 
in Manchuria, and a grateful Government thus 
attended to the needs of his dying wife and 
children. Their food was a semi-poisonous kind 
of weed, ground up with a little rye flour, acorns, 
and oak bark. Throughout the village the same 
conditions held. 

And what was the Russian Government doing to 
alleviate the awful suffering? Selling the grain 
from these very provinces to foreign buyers, and 
denying the existence of a famine in all mighty 
Russia. " Famine ! " said they, ** there is no famine ; 
that is an electioneering cry of the revolutionaries." 
The Russian Government did not want to know 



VILLAGE LIFE 41 

of these terrible events happening in the middle of 
Russia, for it was necessary, in their opinion, to send 
every ounce of grain abroad, that the year might 
figure in the Budget as a prosperous one, and that 
not only might Russia pay interest on its debts 
abroad, but wheedle the Powers to supply it with 
fresh loans. So there was no famine — none 
officially, in the same way as, until only a few 
weeks back, there was no official famine in South- 
Eastern Russia. 

"Put an embargo on grain leaving port," say 
humane persons. "We did so," said the Russian 
Government in 1891, "but it made no difference " 
— but they omitted to give the reason : the 
embargo was laid on Russian grain after every 
ounce had left port ! And so to-day the same evil 
deeds are committed under the garb of officialism. 

Until only a few weeks ago, although this 
present famine is the largest and most terrible 
for many years, the reports sent in by the local 
Governors and other bureaucratic officials stated 
that there was only a little "local scarcity," and 
again, when at last the real nature became patent 
beyond all possible shadow of doubt, millions of 
roubles intended for the relief of the suffering 



42 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

peasantry, and the purchase of grain went into 
the pockets of the corrupt bureaucracy. 

Let us now turn from the condition of the 
peasant physically, living in his izba in sickness 
and in health, and look into his character. 

I must say at once that he is immoral and lazy 
to the core ; he loves nothing better than to have 
just enough money or provisions in hand to allow 
him to have a good long drinking-bout and a 
longer sleep. 

The unequalled laziness of the Russian peasant 
is no doubt due in part, at any rate, to the 
climate, which keeps him snow-bound seven 
months in the year, which paralyses effort, and 
minimises the actual facilities for labour. Further, 
his laziness is no doubt due to the terrible state 
of ignorance in which he is engulfed, and to the 
strenuous efforts made by the Government and the 
Church in combination to keep him supplied with 
a superabundance of holidays, sacred and secular, 
on which he must not work. Hence we find that 
if a day is not devoted to some saint of mythical 
memory, then there is a birthday of a Grand Duke. 
And if the Church is hard put to it to find an 
excuse to keep the muzhik from his daily toil. 



VILLAGE LIFE 43 

the bureaucracy come forward with cringing sup- 
plications to His Majesty to name that day a 
holiday, in honour of his having escaped typhoid 
or smallpox, or some other disease which he was 
never in any possible danger of catching, " for the 
sake of the peasant, and to alleviate his toil." I 
quote from an Imperial Ukaze of 1906. 

The peasant, when not actually working, does 
not know what to do, except sleep ; and this he 
does with consummate ease at all times and in 
all places. Neither reading nor writing is at the 
command of the ordinary specimen. My own 
calculations in Western Russia show that two per 
cent, can read and write a little, while in some of 
the provinces of Central Russia four per cent, 
have these acquirements. But beyond this there 
is in the Russian peasant an innate sloth, a love 
of idleness which enchains him in a vice, and in 
itself has done much to stop progress throughout 
all branches of civilisation the length and breadth 
of this vast country. If the peasant can be lazy, 
he will be, and it will take a great deal of per- 
suasion and very excellent offers to make him 
turn his hand to anything if he has decided on 
a long loaf, even if he knows that at the end of 



44 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

it he will be penniless. There is a hole in the 
Russian peasant's pocket which allows money to 
run out as fast as it runs in. To sum up, he is 
a spendthrift of the most pronounced type, and 
in laziness has no equal. In summer he works 
on the fields, and in winter lets out his horse, 
if he has one, for transport of grain, wood, mer- 
chandise, etc. 

In some parts of the country the peasantry, 
owing to the praiseworthy initiative of certain of 
the noblesse and landowners, are engaged in what 
is called " Koostarny dielo" or " hand manufacture " 
— baskets, spoons, forks, toys, basins, etc., etc. In 
the provinces of Pavlovo whole villages are en- 
gaged in the manufacture of cutlery. In that of 
Vladimir the making of ikons is the chief means 
of subsistence, while Prince Galitzin informs me 
that he is working night and day to introduce 
pottery-making among the peasantry, and already 
many thousands are engaged upon it. Further, 
Mademoiselle Mohl has organised a staff of workers 
amongst the peasant women, who are taught to 
manufacture cloths of cotton and wool by hand. 
Yarvslaff supplies waiters for the traktir^ and 
Tartars from Kasimoff are much in demand for the 



VILLAGE LIFE 45 

best Russian hotels in Petersburg, Moscow, and the 
other big towns throughout the Empire. 

If one was asked for further characteristics 
common to the peasant, one might say that he 
is almost as cunning as he is idle — but it is, 
be it understood, the cunning born of ignorance, 
and is blended with an enormous admixture of 
astounding and childlike credulity. 

A really magnificent instance of this credulity 
reached my ears only eight months back, when 
I was touring through the Province of Orel in 
Central Russia. One day a man of dignified mien, 
with long brown beard, dressed as a priest, and 
armed with a long pilgrim's stick as if to denote 
that he had travelled far — a supposition which 
was fostered by the fact that his boots were 
worn into holes and he limped painfully at each 
succeeding step — arrived in a certain village in 
that Province, and with wild enthusiasm narrated 
how he had been sent forward by the Emperor to 
choose a village which contained a church (some 
of the minor scattered hamlets of eighty to a 
hundred inhabitants are not possessed of one). 
They were duly flattered by reason of the holy 
man choosing their village out of all the villages 



46 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

of Russia for the reception of the Little Father, 
the Tzar, and more so in that they were accounted 
such men of genius. Further, they felt no small 
pride that the Little Father should really be about 
to honour their village with his presence. Some 
few had their suspicions, which were deepened when 
the holy man said that it would be necessary for 
all the villagers to provide food and cattle of one 
sort or another to be presented to the Emperor, 
and further, that at least lOO roubles must be 
collected to present to the Church, for the meet- 
ing was to be not only presided over by the 
Emperor, but was to be quite unique in the 
history of Christendom ; also, not only would the 
food and cattle be restored twentyfold by the 
Emperor, but the Church would repay ten 
roubles for every one collected. 

This was a bait indeed ; but the suspicious 
ones still doubted the words of the holy man, 
and finally asked the priest, whom the Emperor 
was about to meet. This was the question the 
man of God had awaited. Said he, tearing his 
hair in apparently frenzied wrath : " O ye 
miserable unbelievers, ye of little faith, may 
God pardon you for your faithlessness in doubt- 



VILLAGE LIFE 47 

ing me, His messenger. The Emperor meets 
here no other than God Himself." 

The effect was astounding. All were electrified, 
and stood dumb with amazement, and the sus- 
picious ones disappeared into the background, 
and hung their heads, ashamed that they had 
been impious enough to distrust the messenger 
of God Himself, and that they had almost gone 
the length of rejecting the proffered visit of the 
Creator. Money was immediately subscribed, and 
not 100 roubles, but 200 — "for," said the simple 
muzhik, with that mixture of ignorant cunning 
and credulity I have alluded to, " if God will 
return us tenfold the gifts we give, let us then 
give 200 roubles instead of 100." And in like 
manner the village was cleared of its cattle, its 
horses, its goods of every description, and for 
the same subtle reason. 

Rejoicing was rife, and the man of God looked 
on, an expression of holy enthusiasm pervading 
his features. 

The goods collected, he suggested that it would 
be advisable to drive all the cattle to a large shed 
five miles away, when preparations would be made 
to present them to God and the Emperor a week 



48 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

from that date. " Meanwhile," said he, " you must 
spend your days in prayers and fasting, and on 
the seventh day march with reverence to the spot 
agreed upon." 

The peasants did exactly as they were told, 
and fasted religiously all the week ; indeed, they 
had but little left to eat, after giving up all 
their meal and other material, and prayed 
mightily that their gifts might be acceptable to 
the august Personages concerned, and more 
mightily still that all would be returned to 
them with ten times the amount added. 

Six days elapsed, and on the seventh in long 
procession the denizens of the village marched 
to the shed. Wonderful ! As they approached, 
nothing unusual could be seen. " Ah ! " said they, 
"God is mysterious. He will be there awaiting 
us with multitudes of angels. He can do things 
we wot not of" 

They reached the shed, they entered the large 
folding doors, and, to their blank amazement 
horses, cattle, and goods — all had vanished ! The 
peasants could not believe their senses, and many 
prayed that God would show Himself to them — 
but God did not appear, neither did the Emperor, 



VILLAGE LIFE 49 

and neither did the holy man of God, His 
messenger — and further, to this day they have 
seen and heard nothing of their money, cattle, 
or goods ! 

Episodes such as these are not uncommon 
amongst those ignorant Russian peasantry, their 
cunning being of that type born of ignorance 
and sufficiently developed to keep them from 
being defrauded by any other forms of trickery 
except such as have a basis in religion. Religion 
and its power is so engrained in them, more as 
a thing to be feared than venerated, that it needs 
but little of its gloss to polish the most unlikely 
tale with the glitter of undeniable truth. 

Their religious feeling has its expression in 
popular demonstration, more than is found in any 
other country in the civilised world. No Russian 
peasant enters into the izba of another without 
first inclining his head reverently towards the 
family ikon hanging on high in the further corner 
of the room, and crossing himself with a degree 
of fervour which would lead one to believe that 
he was paid for it. 

The manner in which the Russians cross them- 
selves is entirely different from that of the 

D 



50 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Catholics. The little and third fingers are drawn 
back into the hand, the index and middle, together 
with the thumb, project as a mystic symbol of 
the Trinity, and the whole body is bowed at the 
same time. The Russian peasant, in order to 
accomplish this ceremony to his liking, needs a 
little plot of ground all to himself, for he bends 
his body double, so that his long shaggy locks, 
from which his hat has been removed, sweep the 
ground in front of him ; then, with an upward 
movement of his whole anatomy, he swings his 
head back, and at the same moment brings his 
arm to attention, and sweeps the sign of the cross 
over his chest. 

Go where one will throughout the length and 
breadth of Russia — in town or village, in the 
crowded public street, or in the quiet solitude of 
the isolated izba — one never fails to see the peasant 
performing this ceremony, more, as it seems to 
me after watching them under a variety of circum- 
stances, as an outward mark of their religious zest, 
as a demonstration to the Deity that they have 
not forgotten Him, than from any real sense of 
religious fervour. 

As I have said, they fear rather than venerate. 



VILLAGE LIFE 51 

and the more a Russian's education proceeds, the 
more does this become evident, from the fact that 
this very education breeds indifference. The more 
a Russian becomes disentangled from the priestly 
network of superstition which for centuries has 
been sedulously fostered by Church and State, 
the more he looks upon the rites of that Church 
and its various requirements from its children, as 
so many things that have to be done in the day's 
work, and so it is as well to do it and get it over. 
Belief in the efficacy of the sign of the Cross, 
or real feeling of the Divine greatness at the 
time of making it, there is not amongst the 
educated classes, as a general rule ; and one will 
see the most ridiculous proofs of this in the 
manner of performing it — for instance, after a 
banquet. It is done unconsciously and by many 
over the region of the stomach ; many perform 
the act while laughing and talking, and I have 
frequently observed the finger, in its course over 
the breast or elsewhere, stop dead during the 
utterance of some emphatic remark, or during 
some convulsive burst of Homeric laughter, and 
then continue on its involuntary course. But 
amongst the lower classes it is done both volun- 



52 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

tarily and involuntarily, before and after eating, 
on going to bed and on rising, on all occasions 
of ceremonial connected with Church or State, 
or with the local village Commune ; on passing 
church or shrine, especially if either is dedicated 
to his patron saint ; on meeting with friends in 
the early morning or bidding them good-night, 
and, what is most to be deplored in connection 
with the exercise of this meaningless ceremonial, 
is that it is performed (in combination perhaps 
with the lighting of a taper in a church and the 
presentation to a patron saint) by every villain 
previous to his deed of crime — be it robbery, fraud 
or murder — showing that those of evil intent 
hold the sign to be of as great assistance to them 
in their nefarious designs as do the presumably 
righteous in their well-doing. 

When a Russian has indulged to the full in a 
superabundance of crossings, and lighted a candle 
of a respectable value to his favourite saint, he 
feels himself as secure from the clutches of the 
evil one as if he were safely ensconced in 
Abraham's bosom. 

A scoundrel once wrote to his accomplice : 

" To-morrow is the day, dear Ivan, when we may 



VILLAGE LIFE 53 

at last begin our enterprise. I prithee do not 
forget to light a large candle to the Mother of 
God of blessed memory, in Kazan Church to- 
morrow at nine o'clock. I will do likewise to 
St John, in the Church of the Holy Trinity." 

The enterprise was to rob his master of 10,000 
roubles, which he actually did, and murdered him 
into the bargain, while the tapers were still burn- 
ing — a fresh candle no doubt being lighted after 
the event to celebrate the success of the deed. 

Amongst incidents of a minor nature it is 
extremely common to see muzhiks^ or town cab- 
men, or indeed any Russians of the lower classes, 
fighting amongst themselves (not very vehemently, 
it is true, for your true Russian has not the 
energy), and interspersing their shouts and curses 
— which they shower upon the head of their 
opponent — with a multitude of crossings. 

It is an everyday occurrence to see the Jehus 
of St Petersburg and Moscow frantically rushing 
to be first to obtain the prospective " fare," as the 
latter sallies from the door of his hotel, and then, 
one having attained the prize, to see the other 
madly chase him, raining imprecations upon his 
head. Thus the wordy warfare proceeds, inter- 



54 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

spersed with sundry prodigious blows of each 
other's whips across the sheepskin-covered backs, 
when suddenly one will see them stop in their 
headlong flight, cease their cursings, and reverently 
lift their hats as they pass some well-known shrine 
or glittering church, crossing themselves the while. 
This done, the fight goes on anew, as if nothing 
had happened to cause an interlude. This is a 
sight that may be seen any day and at any hour 
in the streets of any great Russian city or town, 
and it speaks only too eloquently of the real 
value which is attached to this outward symbol 
ordained by the Russian Orthodox Church. 

In every house and room throughout Russia is 
hung an ikon. It is as if it were deemed im- 
possible to perform any act — to work, play, read, 
write, breathe — unless in the presence of these 
representations of the Virgin, or of one or another 
of the Holy Saints, who in Russia number legion 
(one at any rate for each day in the year), and 
of whom the most common and most generally 
venerated is St Nicholas. 

Amongst many wealthy Russians one will find 
their houses decorated everywhere with these out- 
ward signs of devotion. I have seen in the town 



VILLAGE LIFE 55 

mansion of a rich Russian merchant, as vulgar as 
he was rich, chests of these ikons in silver, copper, 
tin, and even in gold. Amongst the peasantry, 
one finds their izbas decorated almost solely by 
these sacred images — many dirty, badly painted, 
and lustreless ; and on frequent occasions, during 
feasts, festivals, fasts and special holidays, birth- 
days, baptisms, funerals, is a candle lighted and 
placed in a holder opposite the principal ikon^ 
hanging in the corner of the room facing the 
door of the izba. 

When a peasant yawns, he will turn to this ikoy 
and make the sign of the cross before his open 
mouth to stop the devil getting in ; and again, 
if he is about to do some bad deed, such as 
steal from the pocket of a drunken comrade, or 
perhaps set out on an expedition by night to 
steal his master's wood — a very common employ- 
ment amongst the peasantry in the winter — he will 
carefully turn the face of the ikon to the wall, 
praying that that holy emblem may not be a 
witness of his evil deed. 

Other pictures adorning the walls of a peasant 
izba invariably include an old dust - begrimed 
moth-eaten representation of Alexander II., the 



56 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Emancipator of the Serfs, and also a cheap 
engraving, distributed broadcast throughout Russia 
by the Government, of the reigning Tzar. Some- 
times may be seen great flaring, vulgar designs, 
generally in brilliant red, depicting the devil deal- 
ing out judgment to peasants after death for all 
their sins, those sins being generally pictorially 
represented. Thus there will be a church, in 
which presumably service is going on, and a 
muzhik will be seen standing outside drinking 
from a vodka bottle, the devil meanwhile patting 
him on the back. Another will show a room, on 
the wall of which hangs a large portrait of the 
Tzar. In front of this kneel in reverent attitude, 
crossing themselves, a mass of peasantry, but one 
— the Wicked One — will be seen standing in an 
attitude of defiance. What is the result? 

To the right of the picture will be seen another 
dreadfully impressive scene, which does not fail 
to have its due effect on the unfortunate Russian 
peasant. In that picture is seen a large foaming 
cauldron, by the side of which stands the devil in 
brilliant red, holding a long three-pronged fork 
in his hand. With this he is prodding some 
unfortunate object which sits in the cauldron 



VILLAGE LIFE 57 

being slowly boiled ; the object is seen to be 
the unfortunate muzhik^ while a legend in large 
letters reads " eternal fire " ! These pictures too 
are distributed by an enlightened (?) Government. 

All the miracles from the time of the Creation 
may be seen pictured in red, blue, green, yellow, 
and a hundred and one other colours. One par- 
ticularly, which attracted my attention in the 
izba of a rather well-to-do peasant starosta^ or 
head man of his village, was a representation of 
the " Deneshnoi diavol or money devil. 

The devil is painted a superb purple, and is fly- 
ing with outstretched wings, and claws and talons 
outspread over the whole world, and amongst the 
cities, towns, and haunts of men. From every 
part of his anatomy — mouth, hands, feet, and 
hair, gold coins are protruding, and falling in 
endless shower upon the ground beneath. Men 
in thousands of all degrees pursue the flying devil, 
to catch the gold falling in such abundance. 
Behind the devil rides on a rampant yellow horse 
the devil's adjutant, flogging his animal with the 
wand of Mercury. A butcher has lassoed the evil 
spirit with a thick rope, and is feverishly attempt- 
ing to draw him nearer and stop his headlong 



58 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

flight. Another has managed to encircle the 
devil's great toe with a bit of string, and is doing 
his level best to do the same as the butcher. 
The owner of a restaurant or Russian traktir has 
managed to insert a tube into the devil's back, 
and sits contentedly tapping the gold and silver, 
which pours in continuous streams into his wine- 
barrels, whilst a Russian lady adorned in all her 
finery, and attired as for a ball, hangs lovingly 
round the neck of the devil's adjutant, cajoling 
him into giving her money-bags, several of which 
she has already tied round her slender waist. 

The Church does not escape, nor does the 
Government, from which one may safely gauge 
that in this instance the picture was not dis- 
tributed by either of those degenerate institu- 
tions. A fat priest, with face beaming with a 
seductive, mealy smile and expressive of the 
utmost hypocritical humility, stands before his 
congregation, exhorting them with hand on high 
to do their duty to their fellow-man and to the 
Church. "Collect ye not the treasures of this 
world," says he, and at the same time one 
notices that his left hand is extended behind 
his surplice, and into it is being poured streams 



VILLAGE LIFE 59 

of coin which the flying devil showers down 
upon him. 

The Government is represented as follows : A 
large crowd of starving, emaciated peasantry stand 
and kneel in supplicating attitudes before the 
gigantic figure of a man representing the majesty 
of official Russia. Fat, repulsive, double-chinned, 
and vulgar to a degree, he stands with pockets 
bulging with gold, into which the devil is pouring 
yet more, whilst behind him stands the Angel of 
Charity, representing the real Russian people, 
divesting herself of her last gold pieces to give 
to him (official Russia), in order that he may dis- 
tribute them to the starving wretches. What is 
the representative of Bureaucracy doing ? He is 
gingerly giving out kopeks (the fifth of a penny) 
to the dying multitudes, while across the burst- 
ing pockets runs the legend, " For private 
needs." Finally, apart from all the crowd, smiling 
with intense irony, sits a little ape crunching 
nuts and spitting upon a gold coin which has 
rolled his way. With one hand he points to a 
sign-post, which reads, "To Hell," in which un- 
enviable direction all the people described are 
going, and he is saying, with reference no doubt 



6o THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

to the Darwinian theory, " Fools ! why were they 
not content to remain monkeys?" 

Thus we see that the Russian peasant, devoid 
of all capabilities in the matter of reading and 
writing, has a mind and imagination which are 
ripe for the reception of all trash that Church, 
State, those desirous of influencing him for good 
or evil, may pour into his poor besotted brain. 
So it is not strange to find that not only is 
he a slave to the deceits practised by men, but 
that he is even more dominated by superstition, 
and feels himself bound by irrefragable obliga- 
tions to numerous spirits, which he imagines 
infest this wicked world. 

It is generally understood amongst the Russian 
peasantry that swarms of spirits — good, bad, and 
indifferent — wander at will through the universe, 
and nothing will shake from him this belief, 
which again, let me add, is sedulously fostered 
in his all too credulous brain by the iniquitous 
representatives of the Church. Every spot on the 
world's surface harbours these spirits : not even 
the sanctity of the Orthodox Churches is 
respected. These immaterial beings are, as a 
rule, the personification of evil, and the bitter 




The coming of 5pring. 




Tojace />. 60. 



Group of Peasants. 

The starosta (headman) is second from the left. 



\ 



VILLAGE LIFE 6i 

and unrelenting foes of mankind. They pene- 
trate into private houses, into human bodies, 
into holy edifices ; they swarm in river, lake, 
pond, and swamp. They wander at will through 
forest and valley, and across the boundless 
plains, bringing disease, temptation, and every 
conceivable form of misfortune in their train. 
Their number is legion, and they are blessed 
by the peasantry with all kinds of names — 
Tchort^ Diavoly and others — all of which can be 
translated by the one word "devil." 

However, in different provinces, according to 
supposed misdeeds of the evil one, the name 
undergoes a change, and so in this way each 
spirit has some thirty to forty different names. 

With regard to the special attributes of the 
spirits, the popular peasant imagination divides 
them into the following distinct groups, and it 
is indicative of the state of mind and the bring- 
ing up of our unfortunate friend, and of the 
moral and intellectual teaching bestowed on him 
by the Church, that the only subject he knows 
about is the subject of these devils. If he does 
not know any minor detail regarding the life- 
history of some spirit, he says, " I will ask the 






62 



THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 



Priest," proving that the source of his instruc- 
tion is the Church. 

Let me give the list of spirits, as known to 
the Russian peasant and ecclesiastical world, and 
follow it up with a sketch of the attributes of 
each of the evil ones : 



(i) Household demon or 


Domovoi. 


(2) Farmyard 


n 


Domovoi dvoroff. 


(3) Bath 


t) 


Bannik. 


(4) Barn 


» 


Ovennik. 


(5) Hole 


» 


Keekeemona. 


(6) Wood 


}» 


Leshi. 


(7) Field 


)) 


Polevoi. 


(8) Water Demons 


» 


Vodiavoi, 


(9) Water Fairies 


)) 


Roussilki. 



(10) Incarnations (substitutes) Oborotni. 
The Domovoi or household demon is that one 
most commonly to be heard discussed by the 
muzhiks at work and at rest, at market and fete, 
on festival days and the holidays in honour of 
any official function. " What will the Domovoi do 
to-day?" is the Russian peasant's first thought. 
" What can he do ? " we may ask. Much ! He 
haunts dwellings, and plays disagreeable tricks 
on unsuspecting housewives and their husbands ; 
but he can also be domesticated and made almost 
harmless. However, he is none the less feared, 
and the peasantry often allude to him as " grand- 



VILLAGE LIFE 63 

father." Peasants, as a rule, tell me that the 
Domovoi cannot be seen, but those who profess 
to have been honoured by a private view (gener- 
ally the biggest liar and greatest hypocrite in the 
village) are looked upon with nothing short of 
veneration. By these the Domovoi is stated to 
be in possession of a rasping, hard voice, and to 
be covered with soft hair, like the down on a 
baby's skin, even to the palms of his hands. His 
principal occupation is to hide in stores, cup- 
b ards, boxes, and moan dismally, occasionally 
asserting himself by sitting on men's chests while 
they sleep. 

The Russian peasant, after a heavy carousal, 
and a consequent invasion by the evil Domovoi^ 
prescribes another bottle of vodka for himself, 
and gets drunk again. Before any extensive 
culinary operations the Russian peasant women 
invoke the aid of the Domovoi ^ and I have fre- 
quently seen her endeavour to propitiate the 
spirit in favour of her sinning husband, who is 
out late at night on a drinking bout, by placing 
outside the outer door provisions, such as bread 
and a bottle of kvass^ in order that the Domovoi may 
eat and imbibe, and guide her husband's footsteps 



64 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

safely home. In family events of any importance, 
such as marriages, births, death, food is placed on 
the threshold both inside and outside for the 
Domovot's consumption, with the words : " There 
for thee, grandfather Domovoi ; may your deeds 
be well for us, and mayst thou aid us with thy 
kind assistance that our actions may prosper, our 
children grow up, and our hens and pigs multiply." 
In return for all this attention bestowed on 
the Domovoi^ he, when in a friendly disposition, 
is said to warn his hosts about impending 
trouble. In what manner he does this I have 
never succeeded in ascertaining ; but it would 
seem that it is done through the medium of 
dreams. Further, the Domovoi gives the peasant 
advice by means of the same medium, and, 
strange to say, the dream often takes the form 
cf advice to the peasant to steal his master's 
wood, potatoes, and what not. This he 
religiously proceeds to do, feeling absolutely 
justified in the performance of the deed, for one 
must know a Russian muzhik if one wishes to be 
acquainted with the type par excellence of that 
human being who can convince himself that 
that is right which he in his inmost conscience 



VILLAGE LIFE 6$ 

knows is wrong, but which he ardently wishes 
to believe is right. 

The Domovoi dvoroff or farmyard spirit is a 
malign person who delights in tormenting domestic 
animals. It is owing to his evil influence that 
cows get weak and thin, horses get mutilated, 
and their tails cut. His appearance is that of 
a man, but covered completely with hair. He 
exercises complete dominion over the farmyard, 
and when the good Russian housewife takes a 
goose or fowl from the farmyard stock, she often 
practises deception on the Domovoi dvoroff by 
hanging up the head of the goose or fowl in 
the poultry-shed, in order that the spirit, when 
he counts his protegees^ may not discover that 
one has been removed. 

The Bannik or bath demon haunts bath-houses, 

which in consequence are not considered safe after 

midnight. He hides under the shelves round the 

bath-house, is a very malicious spirit, and capable 

of the most outrageous crimes against the person, 

so in consequence the peasantry do all in their 

power to flatter him. At the time when the 

E 



66 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

peasants bathe, it is known that the Bannik 
takes his bath at the fourth turn. This turn he 
usurps for his own, and peasants therefore always 
avoid bathing after the third, fearing that hot 
bricks may fall on them, boiling water be 
thrown at them, steam scald them ; and the 
method therefore adopted is to leave the bath- 
room, in the event of the peasants bathing singly, 
after the third turn to the exclusive use of the 
Bannik for a period varying from twenty minutes 
to half an hour, and then after that period to 
return. In the Russian villages no one bathes 
after seven — that is to say, in those districts 
where the belief in the powers of the Bannik 
prevails ; for it is an unwritten law, handed down 
from father to child for generations and genera- 
tions, that after that hour the Bannik takes 
possession of the bath-house, and invites the 
devil omnipotent with his friends to wash. So 
much is this believed in, that in many villages I 
have seen grown men and women afraid to walk 
in the direction of the bath-house, and you might 
offer them solid gold to walk past the door, but 
they would not accept it. 



VILLAGE LIFE 67 

The Ovennik or barn spirit. — Village barns 
are ill-built wood constructions, and owing to 
the peasant's carelessness are frequently burned 
down ; but simple and natural reasons are not 
admitted for these catastrophes. All evils of this 
nature are placed to the credit of the barn 
spirit. This evil personage sits in the darkest 
corner of the barn, and can be seen only once 
a year, viz. during Mass on Easter Day, when 
he can be recognised by all who are foolhardy 
enough to endeavour to catch a glimpse of him, 
as a large black cat with gleaming eyes, bark- 
ing like a dog, and mewing like a cat. He is 
well disposed, as a rule, and much may be done 
to pacify him. In the winter, rather than that 
he should set the barn alight in order to warm 
himself, I have known peasants in the central 
provinces of Russia burn each night a small 
quantity of wood and straw in the open outside 
the barn, in order that the Ovennik may, if he 
pleases, come out and warm himself; this too 
in villages where wood has been scarce and 
poverty prevalent, showing once more the depths 
of folly to which superstition will lead them. 



68 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

The Keekeemona lives in holes, and plays tricks, 
and frequently is associated with the entangling 
of skeins, the mixing of threads, and the spoil- 
ing of spinning. But the main function of the 
Keekeemona is the causing of epidemics of 
disease. To-day in Samara, where the famine is 
raging, and typhus and scurvy with it, it is safe 
to assume that in the eyes of the peasantry the 
evil time has been organised by the Keekee- 
mona. In the year 1891, the year of the great 
famine, the peasants of Kharkov Government 
met, and solemnly forwarded a petition to the 
Tzar's Most Excellent Majesty through the hand 
of the Governor, to the effect that, "seeing that 
that child of the devil, the Keekeemona^ was 
absolutely and solely to blame for the terrible 
want of provisions, would His Majesty take the 
necessary steps {sic) towards the extermination 
of that spirit." History does not relate what 
the Tzar replied, or indeed if the petition ever 
reached him, which I gravely doubt. 

The Leshi or wood spirit lives in the woods, 
preferring more especially old, moss-grown, vener- 
able firs. His appearance is that of an old man, 



VILLAGE LIFE 69 

his eyes burning with an unsteady flame. He 
grows at will into a person of immense size, or 
vanishes into thin air. While walking in his 
realms, he is taller than the tallest elms, but on 
coming into the open he can and does hide 
himself under a leaf. He is the despotic monarch 
of the forest, makes people lose their way, 
frightens them to death, and is reputed in many 
districts to have a terribly sensual nature, and 
to seduce women and girls indiscriminately. 
To some people he is very friendly, and will 
frequently bring game almost within reach of 
the hunter's hand, and lead him straight to their 
most frequented haunts. The peasants often 
bribe him extensively by leaving a dead hare 
or rabbit in the wood for his consumption. 

The Polevoi or field spirit takes the form of 
a peasant man, dressed in white. His body is 
black, eyes of various colours, and instead of hair, 
his head is covered with green grass. He is well 
disposed, but teases unmercifully, and especially 
annoys drunkards, his favourite hours for mischief 
being midday — a peculiarly honest acknowledg- 
ment on the part of the peasant of his frequent 



70 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

condition at that hour. Sometimes the Polevoi 
gets dangerous, and strangles the peasants sleep- 
ing in the fields. If agricultural tools will not 
work, if some part of the mechanism breaks, or 
if the soil is too hard to allow of sufficient work- 
ing, all these difficulties are put down to the 
account of the evil Polevoi ; he again is bribed 
by the peasantry. I have seen an intoxicated 
muzhik^ before lying down to sleep in the field, 
place another vodka bottle full of the stuff by 
his side, and with the words, " Vot deliar tebye^ 
Polevoi!'' (" There ! that's for you, Polevoi!)" sink 
to slumber. 

The Vodiavoi or water spirit haunts lakes and 
dangerous marshes. He keeps a strict guard on 
his dominions, and it bodes ill indeed for those 
who defy his wrath. Sometimes the Vodiavoi 
takes up his abode in rivers and streams, and 
frequently sleeps the night under the wheels of 
a watermill. He can be seen sometimes as an 
ordinary man, but with very long fingers, and 
nails on his hands and feet varying from a foot 
to a yard long, his hands being rather more like 
paws than like ordinary hands. His head is 



VILLAGE LIFE 71 

covered with long hairs ; he has a very long tail, 
and eyes which burn like a red-hot coal. He 
never comes quite out of the water, but shows 
himself at half length. He drowns imprudent 
or evilly - disposed people bathing or sailing on 
his domains, and delights in killing those who 
never wear their baptismal crosses, and forget 
God. Bruises, marks, wounds on the body of a 
drowned man are invariably taken as proof of 
the torments inflicted by the Vodiavoi. He is 
most disagreeable to millers and fishermen, but 
some of the latter come to an understanding 
with him, and get proofs of his friendship. But 
throughout Russia the peasantry believe that he 
requires human victims for his daily food, and 
nothing will convince them to the contrary. 

Near Antonopol, in the province of Vitebsk, is 
a small pond, where at midnight — punctually on 
the stroke of twelve — may be heard, according 
to the peasants, the shrieks of frenzied men and 
women rising from the bottom. The legend is 
that five hundred years ago a wicked Russian 
noble had a castle on this spot, which of course 
was dry ground, surrounded by a moat filled with 
water. This evil man employed his castle for the 



72 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

purpose of one long debauch, and was in the habit 
of scouring the country to find young women and 
girls, and carrying them by force to his strong- 
hold. For years this went on, till one day — on 
Christmas Eve — when the castle was the scene 
of more outrageous orgies than usual, suddenly 
on the stroke of midnight the whole building 
sank with its inhabitants into the ground, and 
only a pond remained to show the spot where 
such wickedness had held sway. This, say the 
peasantry, was the work of the Vodiavoi^ in retri- 
bution for the sins of the wicked baron. 

The Roussilki or water fairies are represented 
as beautiful women and girls, young angels, sing- 
ing and dancing in the moonlight on lakes, pools, 
streams, etc., trying to attract men, whom they 
torment and drown. The most fervent belief in 
the existence of the Roussilki^ and the most 
poetical stories and songs regarding their deeds, 
are to be found amongst the people of Little 
Russia. They are credited with tearing fisher- 
men's nets, and it is believed that girls who drown 
themselves through love — a very uncommon event, 
I should say, amongst the Russian peasantry — 
become Roussilki, 



VILLAGE LIFE 73 

Oborotni are either men changed by sorcerers 
into animals, trees, or stones, or evil spirits taking 
any form necessary to acquire their object. The 
most common form is that of a she-wolf, which 
may transform itself into a dog, a cat, a bust, 
a stone, or a tree, and then return to the image 
of a man. 

Obinenki, — Yet other spirits are supposed to 
be devils' children, which are substituted in the 
place of human babies, profiting by some im- 
prudence or forgetfulness on the part of the 
mother. This belief does sometimes very great 
harm to quite innocent beings. Only a few 
months back a case was brought to my notice 
of a poor woman who had been chained to the 
wall in a peasant izba for no less than thirteen 
years. The facts are as follows : At the age 
of nine she developed a hoarse, guttural cough 
and a peculiar, rather vacant expression of counte- 
nance. At the same time, according to the 
peasantry, it was noticed that into whatever 
house she entered there was sure to be illness. 
A consultation of the elders of the village was 
held, and it was decided nem. con, that this 



74 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

unfortunate girl was no human child, but the child 
of one of the numerous devils, which had been 
placed as a substitute in the cradle during the 
period of suckling. A wise babooshka^ or old 
woman, was called in to give her opinion, and 
without any hesitation gave it on the side of 
the majority. The mother was informed of the 
terrible decision, and such is the faith of the 
peasant in devils, and all things appertaining to 
them, she acceded to their inhuman request, which 
was that the wretched girl, in order to stop her 
wandering in the village and doing harm, should 
be chained to the wall of the izba. This was 
done, and after a more or less lengthy period the 
child became mad, but was kept chained for 
thirteen years, until she died only a few months 
back. Other similar cases have been brought to 
my notice, and I have no doubt that, if the truth 
were known, such instances of credulity and cruelty 
are very numerous. 

Ruled with a rod of iron by the religious duties 
imposed upon him through his belief not only in 
the prescribed ceremonies of the Church, but also 
in the powers of the spirits of good and evil in 
the world below, the Russian peasant should be, 



^tm 



VILLAGE LIFE 75 

one might imagine, tolerably pure within. We 
will give him the benefit of the doubt, and infer 
that he is inwardly clean. As to his outward 
condition, the state of his izba might have led 
my readers to suppose that his body was kept in 
harmony with the filth there prevailing. Then my 
readers can disabuse themselves of this idea at 
once, for, in a sense, he is cleaner in body than 
our own English agricultural labourer, and can 
give him points. The peasants love their vapour 
bath as a fish loves water, and not content with 
turning their izbas into ovens filled with steam, 
in order to indulge in their favourite relaxation, 
they are in the habit of frequenting en masse the 
village vapour bath once a week, or, at any rate, 
once a fortnight. It is a quaint sight! Round 
the walls of the public perspiratory establishment 
are broad shelves in tiers one above the other ; 
wooden tables lie here and there, on which are 
emblems of castigation, in the shape of bundles 
of twigs. A huge stove, from which protrudes 
a chimney, is seen in one corner of the room, 
and from this emerge volumes of steam, filling 
the room with a moist heat, which would seem 
to those unaccustomed to it absolutely unbearable. 



76 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

In the villages where the bath is of a less up- 
to-date quality, the steam is produced by means 
of heating bricks to a red heat, and then pouring 
cold water over them, the water being contained 
in an immense tub standing by the stove. The 
steam thus produced rises in thick volumes, and 
fills the bathroom. But be the steam produced 
how it may, the actions ot our friend the peasant 
remain the same from one end of Russia to the 
other. Old and young assemble on bath-night, 
and, naked as their mothers bore them, stand, sit, 
and lie full length in every conceivable attitude 
on bench, table, and even floor. Enthusiasm 
waxes fierce, their faces reflect the keen delight 
of anticipation which fills their souls, and as the 
heat of the room gets greater and greater, and 
the vapour rises and falls in great thick rolls, 
their spirits rise with it. They dance and sing in 
the exuberance of their enjoyment, for it would 
seem that as the pores of their skins are opened 
by the artificial heat, and provide an exit for all 
the excrementitious material collected during the 
past week or fortnight in their bodies, there enters 
through those same pores a stream of life-giving 
ether which, coursing through their veins and 



VILLAGE LIFE 77 

reaching the heart's core, engenders a sense of 
wild exultation, and raises them from their usually 
melancholy mood to heights of delirious joy, such 
as one would never dream the solid, apparently 
inert, passionless muzhik capable of. 

The twigs are seized, and with shouts of mad 
glee the peasants — debauched, intoxicated with the 
superabundance of spirits permeating their whole 
organism — beat each other mercilessly on head, 
back, front, and legs. All is chaos — a shout- 
ing, revelling mass of human beings, apparently 
deprived of reason — surging this way, that way ; 
leaping on bench and table, performing the most 
ludicrous and almost impossible antics — one stand- 
ing on his head, and shouting at the top of his 
voice, while others beat him with an energy which 
one would imagine would be productive of the 
most intense pain and produce weals that would 
last for weeks ; but no — the scene goes on : this 
one full length on the floor, while those actually 
stand upon his prostrate figure and dance a sort 
of Highland jig ; another may be seen running 
madly against the wall of the bathroom, and 
butting it with his back, and then rushing again 
to the centre of the room and executing a feverish 



7S THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

war dance — arms, legs, head, body, moving in every 
conceivable direction at one and the same time, 
till finally he falls exhausted, and lies a panting, 
perspiring, speechless mass on the floor of the 
reeking bathroom. To this stage all the par- 
takers in this orgy eventually arrive, but only 
for a few moments are their limbs and lungs 
deprived of power to act. The final scene is yet 
to come. Rising en masse, with blood-curdling 
yells they run to the door of the bathroom, 
fling it wide ajar, and with shouts and screams 
redoubled, roll in the fallen snow. A minute 
thus, and with bodies glowing with the exercise, 
and the blood coursing wildly through their veins, 
they rush pell-mell back to the heated bathroom, 
where they sit subdued and rub each other down, 
and then again don their discarded, filthy sheep- 
skins, their vermin-infested shirts^ their parastic- 
ally- peopled vestments of whatsoever kind they 
may be in the habit of wearing. 

Reader, see in this my reason for saying that 
in a sense the Russian peasants are the superior 
in cleanliness to our English agricultural labourer. 
The fact that they thus proceed after a health- 
giving bath to envelop purity in the garb of 



VILLAGE LIFE 79 

dirt and disease is only one more sorrowful proof 
of the lack of commonsense, forethought, and 
initiative so marked in the unfortunate Russian 
peasant. I need not enlarge on the point, except 
to say that in many villages throughout Russia 
to-day — these villages where light is entering 
and signs of intelligence are beginning to dawn, 
— in this matter as well as in others improvement 
may be noticed. In some quarters, in a large 
oven built especially for the purpose, the sheep- 
skin coats and the varied wearing paraphernalia 
are submitted to a wholesome process of baking 
while the respective owners bathe. 

In reference to these peasants, one may justly 
say that amongst the peasants of the wide world 
they have not their equal in cleanliness. And, 
be it noted, although my remarks so far may 
seem to have been all on the bad side of the 
account, I have yet to say that the Russian 
peasant has points of sterling worth and qualities 
which may well call for our admiration, for the 
peasant is a man of contrasts and extremes 
similar to his own vast country ; and despite 
all his faults, I for one can never fail to pay 
generous tribute to his unrivalled patience, his 



8o THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

unfailing courtesy, kindness, and hospitality to 
strangers, his simple faith, and his usually bound- 
less gratitude. 

Let us leave the question of the peasant's 
spiritual food and the methods by which his 
exterior is made pure, and turn to that susten- 
ance which serves as a physical support. What 
does he eat? There are four fundamental things 
in the daily menu: Stchee (a vegetable soup), 
small cucumbers or ogovtzi^ black bread and 
potatoes ; water, or else kvass^ or maybe vodka 
washes these down. Stchee is a mixture of 
chopped cabbage, barley meal, and salt, together 
with a modicum of kvass — the national drink 
par excelle7ice. Amongst the well - to - do butter 
and meal are added and perhaps cream, but 
these luxuries are denied to the peasant. 

Kvass is the beverage par excellence of the 
Russian peasant. To make it, one puts a pailful of 
water into an earthen vessel, into which one shakes 
two pounds of barley meal, half a pound of salt, 
and some honey, more or less according to the 
wealth of the family. This is placed in the evening 
in the oven with a moderate fire and stirred. In 
the morning it is left for a time to settle ; the 



VILLAGE LIFE 8i 

clear liquid is poured off, and it is ready to drink 
in a few days. Everything is deluged in this 
in a peasant household. Potatoes, cucumbers, 
and black bread complete the list of foods. This 
is the diet on which all feed, all are brought up 
from the date of their entry into the world. Milk 
is a luxury, so are eggs, and other meats are 
rarely indulged in — so rarely, that it may be said 
that only on such special occasions as marriages 
or great feast-days does it find its way into the 
poor half-fed stomach of the Russian peasant. 

But we must not forget that great item — 
the curse of the muzhik — Vodka^ or corn- 
brandy. A calculation made in 1827 in St 
Petersburg showed that vodka was sold to the 
amount of 8,000,000 of roubles, which gave to 
every inhabitant — men, women, and children — 20 
roubles' worth yearly, or 2\ pailfuls. Exclude 
the children and the sick, and perhaps foreigners 
— and the resulting amount of drink will show 
what perfervid followers of Bacchus the Russians 
were then. To-day the situation, at any rate 
amongst the peasantry, has changed, but for the 
worse. The peasant, as a general rule, loves his 

bottle of vodka first and foremost, and when 

F 



82 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

dead drunk, either in town or village, it is extra- 
ordinary to see the apathy of others at the sight 
of him rolling from side to side, and every now 
and then falling full length on the pavement or 
in the gutter. The village lavka or spirit-shop 
is always filled with a semi-intoxicated crowd of 
muzhiks drinking their hard - won earnings for 
the benefit of the Russian Government, under 
whose direct control is the sale of spirits through- 
out the Empire. During the five years previous 
to the introduction of the State Monopoly (1890- 
1894), the consumption of spirits was 286,947,500 
gallons; from 1894- 1899 the consumption was 
304,205,000 gallons ; and when the Monopoly was 
extended to 35 provinces of the Empire, there 
were sold in that area — in 1898, 83,997,907 gallons ; 
and in 1899, 91,746,140 gallons. 

The capital spent in establishing the Monopoly 
up to 1899 yielded a return of 106 per cent, 
and so the drink bill goes up while the morality 
of the peasant goes down ; and the Russian 
Government continues to derive an immense 
revenue yearly from the iniquitous traffic, to 
increase which every possible inducement is laid 
within the reach of the unfortunate, otherwise 
neglected Russian peasant. 



VILLAGE LIFE 83 

At the celebration of a parish fete, when the 
peasant allows himself a banquet of luxuries 
unthought of at other seasons, the vodka bottle 
will be seen to hold a prominent position. On 
these occasions we see laid on many izba tables 
milk, butter, eggs, braga — a sort of beer (home- 
made); kasha^ a dish made of buckwheat and 
meat of various kinds. Kvass is there in plenty, 
and most conspicuous of all is the vodka bottle. 
The izba undergoes a thorough cleaning the day 
before, a new candle is placed before the family 
ikon in the corner, and on the day itself the 
peasants are up early, and dressed in their best 
— the men maybe with their ordinary sheepskins, 
but perhaps wearing new sapogys (long boots 
reaching above the knees), a vest, coloured blue 
or red, and a brilliantly tinted kerchief around 
their necks ; the women adorned with a robe 
of cloth material, coloured purple, orange, blue, 
or striped with divers hues ; a similar gaudy 
scarf around the neck, and another broad napkin, 
ranging in colour from pink, green, red, to sober 
dark blue or grey, tied as a substitute for a 
bonnet round their heads ; earrings in every case 
adorn the ears. 



84 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Dinner is served at midday, after an intermin- 
able service in the church, an almost invariable 
prelude in Holy Russia to an event of any 
secular nature. The family, and perhaps guests, 
sit round the table, and literally fill themselves 
till they physically are powerless to eat more ; 
but it is the fashion, handed down by time- 
honoured tradition, for my host to urge them 
to recommence with the words : " I prithee sit 
down, that the fowls in the farmyard may 
breed, and the chickens and bees may multiply." 

The invitation is never refused ; vodka goes 
round yet again, and eating is started afresh 
with a zest of which only a half-starved Russian 
peasant is capable. The majority of the men 
at least get drunk, but the most striking and 
indeed the most disgusting orgies are to be 
seen at the time of the big festivities after a 
long fast. 

Seeing the poverty of the peasant's diet 
throughout the year, it would seem cruel and 
absolutely superfluous to subject him to a multi- 
tude of fasts, as if it were not a recognised 
fact that the Russian peasant's life is in reality 
one long fast, interspersed with bestial oases 



VILLAGE LIFE 85 

of debauchery, which leave his anatomy in a 
worse condition than it was before ; but that 
all-powerful organisation, the Holy Orthodox 
Church, demands that he should be yet further 
deprived of food ; and so the wretched peasant 
fasts rigorously for fourteen days in June, seven 
weeks in Lent, from the beginning of November 
till Christmas, and every Wednesday and Friday 
throughout the year, although I must remark from 
personal observation that these Wednesdays and 
Fridays are not so rigorously observed (at any 
rate, the Wednesdays) as the clergy would wish. 

The chief periods during which these Fasts 
and Festivals are celebrated are — that devoted 
to the Feast of Masslenitsa, or Butter Week, 
previous to the great Lent Fast, the Fast itself, 
the grand Easter Festival, and Christmas week. 

Let us peep at a village during the Feast 
of Masslenitsa. Merrily ring the church bells, 
and multitudes of sleighs with gaily dressed 
occupants singing uproariously, and playing the 
concertina or balaiatka, pass to and fro, drawn 
at the gallop by horses excited by the persuasive 
cries of the semi-intoxicated drivers. The first 
four days the villages keep to themselves, and 



86 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

the feasting, so to speak, goes on at home. The 
peasant's belly is his God, and he does not 
cater for guests outside his immediate circle of 
relations and cronies. He feeds with a vengeance 
unknown to ordinary mortals. He fairly gives 
himself up to an orgy of meat and drink during 
these first four days, and if merry, is merry 
indoors or strictly within the precincts of his 
village. Butter is the most prominent delicacy, 
and is literally absorbed in masses, in view of 
the fact that for seven long weeks nothing but 
oil must be used in its stead. So our friend 
makes a frantic attempt to provide a granary 
in anticipation of the drought enforced by the 
Church. The favourite dish is called blinni, a 
kind of pancake baked in butter and served in 
a sauce of melted butter. 

The last three days of the feast Bacchus breaks 
loose, and, seated in every sleigh, careers over the 
surrounding country — the peasant in merry mood, 
and throwing cares and economy and all thoughts 
of the future to the winds, driving with wife 
and children here and there to the neighbour- 
ing villages, where open house is kept by every 
representative of the muzhik class. Every village 



VILLAGE LIFE 87 

is gay with the scene. Horses with dignified, 
leisurely walk pace up and down, drawing their 
merrily-singing occupants ; the air is rent with 
singing, shouts, and salutations, by no means 
lacking in native wit, sharpened by the aid of 
the all - powerful Bacchus. All are in a happy 
state of alcoholic exuberance, but the prelude to 
the real " fun of the fair." 

On Friday night all go to bed early to prepare 
for the two final and most important days of the 
feast — Saturday and Sunday. On these two days, 
feasting, driving, dancing, and drinking — especially 
the latter — reach their height, the amount of vodka 
(which I must inform my readers is of two sorts : 
(i) containing 57 per cent, crude spirit ; (2) 40 per 
cent, crude spirit) consumed being enormous. The 
peasants dance, sing, and drink, and then drive 
madly through the village, returning again only to 
quench their apparently inexhaustible thirst. 
Every izba has its table laid with vodka and pro- 
visions, and every one is free to enter and imbibe 
to the full, to his heart's content. 

On Sunday night the orgy approaches to its 
extreme height. All form circles, and dance and 
drink, drink and dance, till, as midnight approaches 



88 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

King Vodka reigns supreme. Many are too in- 
toxicated to do anything but roll helplessly and 
idiotically about, embracing all and sundry, the 
while they shout '' Slava Bogoo " ("God be praised"), 
and kiss one another frantically, swearing eternal 
friendships, finally endeavouring to dance a jig, and 
falling inert masses of human flesh sans thought 
sans sight, sans tout^ into the snow, whence they 
are dragged either by comrades less drunk, or 
else by their female relatives, who, as a general 
rule, do not partake to such excess. 

At 11.30 the church bell is tolled by the priest 
as a warning to his flock that the end of the feast 
is near. Previous to this has the bell been tolled 
at 5 P.M., and I can vouch for it that the flock 
answered to the warning note pealed by the 
priest with a will, drinking deeper, deeper, 
deeper, and becoming more wildly excited at 
the thought that but a few hours remain. But 
from 11.30 P.M., when the bell begins tolling, 
and continues to toll till midnight, when it ends 
abruptly, the orchestra of the Holy Church, as it 
were, playing for Bacchus and the devil, the 
scene absolutely beggars description. Pande- 
monium reigns, and all thoughts of morality, 



\ 



VILLAGE LIFE 89 

or propriety, or decorum, are thrown broadcast 
to the winds. All give themselves up to an 
unbridled bestial orgy, till clang, clang, clang 
goes the big bell, tolling the hour of twelve, the 
hour ordained by the Church for the feast to 
cease, and with it the gaiety, the dancing, the 
drinking — all. 

From that moment till Easter, seven long 
weeks, must the peasant fast. Flesh, fowl, milk, 
Gggs, butter, sugar, and in the last week and 
on every Wednesday and Friday, even fish is 
denied him ; but this is not really of such great 
significance, seeing that his means will not, as 
a rule, permit him to purchase it. Those who 
are very strict practise total abstinence during 
the three days previous to Easter Day. All 
drinks except water are forbidden. 

Every day of those seven weeks is the bell 
tolled at 9 A.M., to warn the peasants of their 
solemn duty. They hardly need the warning, 
poor wretches ; the fear of the Church and its 
mandates is pitiable and degrading to behold ; 
and if a peasant transgresses, and is discovered, 
he must spend two hours daily during the fast 
on his bended knees, crossing himself before a 



go THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

holy ikotiy and in addition pay so much to the 
Church, and live for ever under the fear that 
he may be excommunicated, and his soul sent to 
perdition. Instances are legion in which the 
priest has dunned unfortunate peasants driven 
by want to break their fast, and has deprived 
them of their very necessities " for the altar of 
God," as he calls it, a term too often synonymous 
with his own stomach. 

One day only during the fast — Palm Sunday 
— is the diet permitted a certain amount of 
elasticity ; but other than that, these wretched 
people, notwithstanding their usually meagre 
diet, have now to subsist on a pabulum even 
more inadequate. On the eve of Palm Sunday 
the peasants form a grand procession, and 
march to the church, carrying branches and 
gleefully singing, in imitation of Christ's entry 
into Jerusalem. The priest burns incense and 
sprinkles the branches with holy water, and then 
the people file out, taking their palms to their 
own homes, where they are hung up over their 
beds during sleep, on the supposition that good 
will accrue, evil spirits be driven away, and foul 
diseases cured. Mass takes place early on Palm 



VILLAGE LIFE 91 

Sunday, and the youthful peasantry take an 
unholy delight in searching for these lazy ones 
whom sleep has detained from the ceremony. 
These custom permits them to chastise with their 
branches, the while they chant in sing - song 
strain the words, '* Berba biot, biot da floss, Ya 
ne biot Berba biot " (" The rod strikes — strikes 
to tears — I strike thee not — the rod strikes.") 

On the arrival of Passion Week, the last week 
of the fast, preparations commence for the grand 
Easter Festival, and anticipation amongst the 
peasants runs high. Holy Thursday sees every 
church in Russia thronged with people holding 
tapers in their hands whilst listening to the 
Mass read by the priest. The peasantry literally 
squander sums of money on their tapers, some 
beautifully ornamented, costing one to two roubles 
(4s. 2d.). These they keep alight on Thursday, 
and extinguish on Good Friday, rekindling them 
again at midnight on Easter eve, when the 
peasantry march en masse from one village 
to another, producing streams of illumination, 
wandering hither and thither throughout the 
night. 

On Good Friday a representation of our 



92 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Lord's coffin is made, covered with a cloth, on 
which Christ's Body with the wound is painted, 
while in and out stream masses of people wail- 
ing and moaning, surging this way and that 
way, evincing the most poignant grief as they 
struggle to kiss the painted design on the coffin. 
On Saturday all is quite as the grave. 
There are no services in the church — priests 
are undiscoverable ; all are tired with the 
long period of fatigue, all resting, all pre- 
paring for the great celebration. 

Towards midnight the scene changes : the priest 
arrives at the church, the people throng in after 
him, till there is room to do nought else but stand 
while Mass is performed ; but enthusiasm is not 
yet awakened. Suddenly the hour of midnight 
strikes upon the ear, the bell tolls, the doors of 
the Holy Sanctum of bronze or gold open wide, 
disclosing the Holy of Holies, and the priest 
standing in the midst of thick volumes of incense- 
laden vapour. Simultaneously the tapers in the 
church and in every man's hand are kindled, 
and light fills the sacred edifice. The church 
shakes with the tremendous shout of all in 
unison, " Christos Vosskross " (" Christ is risen "), 



\ 



VILLAGE LIFE 93 

and the chant to the same words breaks forth 
in magnificent harmony, with an effect such as 
can only be produced by the voices of Russians 
singing in unison. The pall is removed from 
the coffin, and as the priest passes through the 
church, swinging the golden censor over the 
bowed heads of the people, to the expressive 
and moving vocal strains of the choir, the 
congregation goes wild with enthusiasm — they 
become intoxicated with emotion ; embrace all 
and sundry, friend and foe, known and unknown. 
Delirium reigns! In all parts of the church 
may be seen peasants kneeling, lying at full 
length, regardless of the trampling feet, the 
frantically surging masses kissing the pavement, 
the feet of Christ on the numberless ikons^ the 
shrines ; and, finally, the weeping, joyous crowd 
sweeps in resistless streams — as the rolling, over- 
whelming ocean waves — towards the entrance to 
the Holy of Holies, where the priest stands 
ready to bestow on each a kiss and a blessing. 
The Church then empties, but only to refill 
at four o'clock in the morning with masses of 
people bringing their first meal after the long 
fast to be blessed of the priest. Sugar, meal, 



94 



THE RUSSIAN PEASANT | 



fruit, cheese, eggs, butter, what not are crowded 
into the edifice, till it looks like nothing so 
much as a huge market - place packed with 
viands. The priest passes round sprinkling holy 
water on all sides, and urgent are the requests 
for this or that food to be specially blessed. 
^^ Batooshka (father), for the love of God 
bestow your blessing on my loaves" — my meat, 
and so on. The peasants then return home, 
and having tasted of that which for seven 
weeks has been denied them {vodka is with 
seven - tenths of the peasants the first of the 
forbidden fruits to be indulged in), they sleep 
till the sun rises on Easter morn. Then one 
and all give vent to what might well be called 
a festival of kissing. Every one kisses every 
one else. It is the same everywhere in Russia. 
Easter morn sees kissing being carried on on 
a scale which defies description. High, low, 
rich, poor, all kiss one another. Strangers kiss 
promiscuously, and embrace ad lib. on this joyful 
morn, and no one is denied. 

Eggs are a great feature of the Easter Festival. 
Eggs are everywhere. It is impossible to look 
anywhere without seeing an Qg^\ and these 



VILLAGE LIFE 95 

articles of consumption, most tastefully painted, 
and decorated with ribbons, contain every con- 
ceivable class of provision and liquid. The most 
enormous one I ever remember to have seen 
was in Central Russia last year. The egg was 
about the size of, and of the same shape as, 
a nine-gallon cask, and this being propped upon 
a stool was surrounded by a group of peasantry. 
It was painted white, and adorned with most 
touching pictures of our Lord's death and burial. 
My interest was aroused to see the contents of 
such a huge receptacle, and learn what could 
produce such expressions of hypocrisy, religious 
pretence, and gastronomic anticipation on the 
faces of those sitting round it. I was not long 
left in doubt. The egg was tapped^ a tube 
inserted, and vodka — the real god par excellence 
of the Russian peasant — poured in continuous 
streams into the outstretched glasses. 

Vodka holds a great place in the Easter celebra- 
tion amongst the peasantry. There are, it is true, 
improvements to be noted in certain districts, 
more especially where private landowners and 
philanthropists have been permitted by the 
Police to take the peasants in hand and educate 



96 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

them, and there are certain sects, such as that 
of the Raskolnik, whose members do not touch 
strong drink ; but nothing is more certain than 
that the love of it is there, and though restrained 
by many in a most admirable manner during the 
greater part of the year, on occasion it breaks 
out with a concentrated force, born of pent-up 
energy and desire, that changes the otherwise 
joyous and harmless Russian festivals into orgies 
of debauchery. 

The final ceremony at Easter is the blessing 
of bread, when the priest distributes bread to the 
people, pieces being torn from loaves bearing the 
inscription : " XP . BOC . IHE . MOPMSOVI " (Kristos 
Boskposs . Jesu Hominum Salvator. Mortui). 

These portions of bread are thrown to the wait- 
ing crowds of people, and those who obtain a 
piece with one or more of the letters of the first 
five words rejoice exceedingly, and deem it a 
piece of marvellous good luck, bestowing good 
fortune throughout the year; but those receiving 
a piece with the letters of the last word grieve 
terribly, for it is a sign of grave omen, and 
is taken as an unfailing token of coming mis- 
fortune to person and family. 




A Village 5hrine. 




To face p. 96. 



Peasant Boy. 



VILLAGE LIFE 97 

Finally, Recollection Monday — the first Monday 
after Easter — ends the great Carnival. It is a kind 
of double lock on the week's celebrations, as if to 
sate the lusts and passions of all who may still be 
unappeased, or, as the priests put it, " to satisfy the 
religious thirst." It is, in fact, the worst day 
of the whole festival amongst the peasantry. 
After it there is peace. Indeed, for some days all 
are worn out with their Herculean labours in the 
religious and gastronomic line ; and it is safe to 
assert that no part of the peasant's anatomy 
feels the strain so greatly as the latter apparatus. 
Many are ill for days, and it has been shown in 
some statistics published about ten years ago by 
a well-known physician, that the mortality amongst 
the children and young babies after the Easter 
celebration is doubled. What wonder, when into 
stomachs which for seven weeks have had literally 
nothing supplied to them, is bundled all kinds of 
messes and liquids, regardless of age or condition ! 
One hardly knows which to censure most severely 
— the excessive fasting or the excessive feasting. 
The main point to be noted is that it is the 
Church which is to blame. 

What other interesting ceremonies may be 



98 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

observed amongst the Russian peasantry? Not 
the least fascinating are those relating to Marriage, 
Death, and Baptism ; and this little work would 
not be complete without a sketch of these im- 
portant ceremonies. 

Customs, especially as regards Marriage, vary 
with different regions throughout Russia, and 
I shall endeavour to touch on the ceremony 
connected with the mystical function amongst, 
respectively, the Russian, Lett, Esthonian and 
Ukraine peasantry — all, it must be noted, in the 
general sense Russian peasants, but divided by 
customs, origin, and dialect. 

When a Russian youth has arrived at the 
mature age of eighteen, his parents begin to look 
about them, *' for," say they, " it is time that Ivan, 
our blessed son, brought us another helping hand, 
another breadwinner. We must provide him with 
a wife." The son may have no particular inclina- 
tion to be encircled with the bonds of matrimony — 
but that is a detail ; the capability for labour and 
the power of production is the first thing to be 
considered in the opinion of the Russian peasant ; 
and it is natural that he should think so, for, from 
time immemorial, it has been the custom for the 



VILLAGE LIFE 99 

proprietors — that is to say, up till the time of the 
Emancipation in 1861 — to distribute wives to his 
peasantry, as he might dole out allotments ; and 
though Serfdom is a thing of the past, the custom 
has not failed to leave its indelible impression on 
the minds of the present generation, and so to- 
day we find the old practice kept up, but in a 
slightly different form, and without the interven- 
tion of the proprietor. 

The father of a lad of eighteen begins to observe 
the girls of the village, his keen eye endeavour- 
ing to single out that wench who is strong of 
wind and limb ; and as if to aid the seeker after 
a spouse and his prospective daughter - in - law, 
festivals are arranged in some parts of Russia, 
which are a kind of mixture of market - cum- 
drinking bout. To this drive men, women, girls 
and lads from all the villages round, and during 
the day the girls, chaperoned by their mothers 
and dressed in their best, walk up and down the 
main street of the large village where the fete is 
being held, employing all the arts which God has 
given to women, literally " showing their steps," and 
seductively glancing at the multitude of husbands- 
to-be, who stand in groups with their fathers 

LOfC. 



100 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

watching the scene. Jests fly fast and frequent, 
and wit is not absent. From both sexes come 
shafts of criticism regarding the respective merits 
of those who aspire to marriage ; and many of the 
remarks, as may be imagined in an assembly of 
uncultured peasantry, are not lacking in " breadth." 
" Show your ankles, Anastasia, and give us a look 
at your feet." "Thou'lt feel them soon enough 
on thy unwilling back, thou son of a dog," retorts 
the young lady. " That's the hair I should like," 
says another, referring to a head of hair of beauti- 
ful auburn tint. " What's the use of hair to 
you, fool, when you haven't a head to put it 
on?" "You come with me, I'll protect you," says 
a third. "You," replies the girl, with a look of 
withering contempt ; " why, it would take six of 
you to protect me," — and so the fun goes on. 
But the most striking fact is, that at the end of 
the day but very few of those girls are not pledged 
to be married ; and one sees in many cases lads 
of eighteen, their faces a mixture of shyness and 
pride, grasping by the hand their new - found 
treasure, as if she were some great Christmas toy, 
while she, on her side, stands, as is prescribed by 
custom, demure, with head cast down, affecting to 



VILLAGE LIFE loi 

be overcome by the position in which she finds 
herself, but which she in reality has prepared for 
and discussed during the past three years. 

But this custom of choosing a wife is practically 
only to be found employed in the Western pro- 
vinces, at least so far as I have been able to 
observe from my own personal experience. 

As a general rule, when the son has arrived at 
the prescribed age, much secrecy is manifested. 
The father goes from house to house in the 
village, or in other villages round about, and 
visits the crowd of hoping mothers with marriage- 
able daughters. The daughters are paraded for 
his benefit, and he makes mental notes of their 
charms and capabilities — the charms, be it said, 
having the minimum of weight with him in the 
choice of a wife for his son. He, in fact, wants 
a girl who will be an actual addition to the 
working establishment, a girl who can sew, knit, 
spin, cook, weave, and work in the fields. If with 
all these accomplishments Nature has endowed her 
likewise with a pretty face, then the young man 
for whom she is destined may consider himself for- 
tunate indeed. Further, with the girl must come a 
dower in the shape of a cow, pig, sheep, according 



102 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

to the wealth of the family ; and over this item 
the discussion is very protracted and subtle. 

The father, having discovered that particular 
blend of capability and beauty which he deems 
the type par excellence^ invites the mother of the 
charming young creature to pay a secret visit 
to his izba^ and inspect casually the "jewel," 
as he invariably describes his son, whom he is 
doing her daughter the honour to offer as her 
husband. This is duly carried out. A day is 
arranged for the private view, and the mother, 
on tiptoe with curiosity and bursting with im- 
patience, arrives at early morn at the izba of her 
prospective son-in-law ; and during that day, and 
especially whilst the big meal, which is the event 
of the day, is going on, she observes the lad 
carefully, and is plied with a multitude of assur- 
ances by his mother and other relatives as to 
his wonderful qualities. The lad is supposed to 
know nothing about the matter, and indeed, as 
far as arguments go, takes no part in the deal ; 
and indeed how should he ? He has not seen his 
future bride, and does not know what she is like, 
so, although he is very well acquainted in reality 
with the significance of the proceeding, he is con- 



VILLAGE LIFE 103 

tent to sit and let others do the bargaining and 
arguing, for he knows not whether he wants the 
particular girl in question or not, and is powerless 
to influence the decision one way or the other. 

One point must be made very clear, viz. that 
there are no legal obstacles in the way of blood 
relationship, for the rules of the Russian Church 
are very strict on this point. Cousins may not 
marry, and when one states the fact that the 
relationship created by being godfather or god- 
mother is considered equal to consanguinity, one 
has said enough to show the intricacies attend- 
ing the nuptial deal. For deals they are and 
nothing else; there is no sentiment about your 
Russian peasant wedding. 

When all is arranged, the mother of the pro- 
spective husband proceeds with other women, 
under the cover of darkness and by a circuitous 
route, to the house of the bride-elect. Arriving, 
she knocks three times, and the parents of the 
girl who are expecting the visit open the door, 
and inquire in feigned curiosity what brings them 
there at that hour. Says the mother : " We fain 
would eat." They are cordially invited in, and 
then begins the following quaint system of ques- 
tion and answer. 



104 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Says the mother : " I have a son, a very 
Hercules, able to plough three times as much 
ground as any other man in the village, He is 
comely and tall, and all the unmarried girls in 
the village desire him for a husband ; but I 
have heard from afar that here in this house 
is a beauteous maiden of seventeen summers, 
with eyes as a gazelle, and hair as the golden 
tresses of the Roussilki (water fairies), and bosom 
as white as snow. Rumour says she is possessed 
of all the virtues, is good, pious, and that she 
was born when the sun shone ; further, that she 
can sew, cook, knit, weave, and spin, can milk 
the cows, and work like any man upon the fields. 
I prithee show me that beauteous maiden, for I 
fain would have her as wife for my son." 

The mother of the girl replies that she was 
not aware that her daughter was so accomplished, 
but she will send for her. And here ensues a 
most amusing ceremonial. 

Ten or a dozen young maidens have been 
collected in the house for the occasion, and one 
after the other these are brought in and paraded 
before the eyes of the visitors, on the pretended 
supposition that they are the daughters of the 



♦ 



VILLAGE LIFE 105 

good housewife. One after another they are 
rejected, and with much grief the visitors profess 
to be about to depart when the mother of the 
bride-elect says: "Stay, I have a damsel I had 
forgotten ; I will bring her here," and hastily dis- 
appearing, she ushers into the room the blushing 
maiden. Immediately she is recognised as the 
one, and amidst floods of tears she stands, the 
cynosure of all eyes, whilst she is informed of 
her destiny. Her lamentations fill the house, it 
being the custom so to do ; but there and then 
the marriage deed is verbally arranged, and the 
day fixed. Feasting is carried on then through- 
out the night, and on the following day both 
youth and maiden are escorted by different routes 
to the house of a relative, where, through a key- 
hole or hole in a door, they are each permitted a 
view of their future partners throughout life. It 
is but transitory — a prolonged gaze is inadmis- 
sible, and for any conversation to take place is an 
impiety unheard of. This is the one and only 
glimpse that the bride and bridegroom obtain of 
each other previous to the wedding morn. 

On that day they proceed in separate pro- 
cession to the church. Frequently the bride has 



io6 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

to be carried there, for it is considered chic 
to profess to be overcome with poignant and 
loudly - expressed grief; and often the bride 
struggles violently in the hands of her comrades 
— an interesting relic of the old barbaric days 
when every bride was, as a rule, carried off by 
force from the maternal nest. Consequently to- 
day the bride sheds streams of tears, and pleads 
most touchingly and with the greatest eloquence 
to be permitted to postpone her marriage 
and remain unfettered by the nuptial bonds. 

But her expostulations are of no avail, 
and invariably the blushing pair arrive at the 
church, where crowns made of tin and wreathed 
with flowers are placed upon their heads as 
they stand in front of the altar. The service is 
then performed, and then frequently the custom 
is indulged in by both of drinking from a 
metal flagon. When empty, it is thrown down 
by the last drinker on to the floor, and the 
one who stamps on it first is recognised as the 
master for the term of their married life. But 
as the man always drinks last, and throws it 
where he will, he invariably stamps on it first. 
The bride is then conducted to her husband's 



VILLAGE LIFE 107 

house, and is adorned with pkimes of feathers, 
handkerchiefs, and ribbons. 

The bridegroom's izba is bedecked with corn 
grass and branches of fir and birch, together with 
festoons of red, black, and yellow berries. The 
bridegroom now presents the bride with a packet 
of needles and thread, as a sign of what he expects 
from her during their married life, namely, to sew 
and knit, and attend to his wants. In her turn, 
she presents him with a whip, in token of sub- 
mission to him as lord of all — again a barbaric 
relic of the old mediaeval times, when a woman 
did not consider herself really loved of her 
husband unless she was regularly chastised on 
the very smallest pretext. 

I have been witness of a yet more curious 
custom which is now not universal, but which is 
still extant in many remote parts of Russia, and 
is worthy of description. The bridegroom dons 
his long sapogys or Wellingtons, and places in 
the depths of one a whip, and in the other 
money. Then, summoning his bride, he orders 
her to pull off one of the boots. If she with- 
draws that one containing the whip, she is 
subjected to chastisement with it there and 



io8 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

then, and the fact is taken as a recognition on 
her part that she must, during the rest of her 
life, submit herself unconditionally to him as 
lord and master. If, on the contrary, she with- 
draws the boot containing the money, the latter 
is hers, and she is permitted a great deal more 
freedom than she would otherwise have enjoyed ; 
but to-day the custom, although practised, has 
no significance, and is only kept up in deference 
to tradition. A feast follows invariably, at which 
the bride gives way to weeping, while there 
arises alternately a weird chorus from the married 
women present, praising the pleasures of youth 
and lamenting mournfully the pains and trials 
of matrimony ; and then a joyful chant from 
the unmarried girls, vaunting the pleasures and 
happiness of unmarried life. The men eat and 
drink till they have no remembrance of the 
ceremony that has brought them together. 
Then the bride is taken away on a sleigh 
bedecked with bunches of feathers and adorned 
with merrily tinkling bells. On the second day 
is the feast proper, and on this day the bride- 
groom places his wife opposite to him at table ; 
they act the part of host and hostess for the first 



VILLAGE LIFE 109 

time. Toast after toast is drunk, and finally all 
depart, leaving the pair to their own devices. 

Let us now take a journey to Southern Russia, 
over the boundless steppe which stretches from 
the Carpathians and the borders of Hungary to 
the Great Wall of China, and make our way to 
the Ukraine. Crossing the steppe in spring and 
autumn, we see luxuriant herbage ; in winter drift- 
ing snows massed to great depths in some spots, 
and in others covering the soil with but a thin 
mantle ; in summer, clouds of dust envelop one, 
but it is so excessively fine that even on the 
very calmest day it hangs suspended in the air, 
having the appearance of vapour rather than 
solid particles raised by atmospheric disturbance. 
Trees there are none — a fact remarkable on a 
soil so rich ; but countless herds of horses and 
cattle roam wild over the limitless plains, and 
it has been said that a calf may eat his way from 
the Carpathian Mountains to the Chinese Wall, 
and arrive there a well-fattened ox. 

Wherever a ridge of hills occurs of sufficient 
height to afford protection against the northern 
blasts that come sweeping in an unbroken course 
from the shores of the Arctic Ocean, the character 
of the country is changed. 



no THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

In the Crimea, for instance, though the northern 
portion partakes of all the rude characteristics 
of the steppe, the south coast, sheltered by the 
central mountains, enjoys a climate equal to 
that of Italy, and allows the vine and the olive 
to be cultivated with as much success as in 
Provence. During the long winter of the steppe 
all the energies of Nature seem sunken in sleep, 
but across the white desert sweep the most 
terrible of snowstorms known on this planet. 

The Russian people distinguish three classes 
of snowstorms. A snowstorm which is formed 
by snow that simply falls in a natural way 
from the clouds is called a ^^ Myattyoir A storm 
which sweeps the already fallen snow from the 
ground, and drives it hither and thither, is called 
a ^^ Zamef ; but that species of snowstorm which 
combines both characteristics, which not only 
falls from the clouds in sheets, but, aided by a 
terrible wind, gathers up whole massive drifts 
in its grasp, and propels it high in the air as a 
mighty whirlpool and hurls it in all directions — 
that is termed a " Vingal' and is dreaded of all 
men. None dare face the terrible vinga^ and 
those luckless people and cattle caught in its 
cruel grasp rarely emerge alive. 




£ 

E 

o 



£ 

a 




a 



VILLAGE LIFE in 

When the snow melts on the steppe Spring 
may be said to have begun, and the melting 
season takes place. The steppe becomes a sea 
of mud. Then, as if by magic, follow on the 
track of the mud a magnificent, luxurious herbage, 
and dotting the surface of the plains one sees 
hyacinths, tulips, and crocuses showing their 
delicate heads, and filling the air with their 
wondrous fragrance. An old writer has said : 

"The whole earth seems clad in the colour 
of Hope, while the sky assumes that of Truth ; 
and though it is certainly monotonous to behold 
nothing but blue above and green below, yet 
the recollection of past hardships makes the 
season one of rejoicing to the native and excites 
the admiration of the stranger. Not a hill to 
break the tedium of the landscape, through which 
a well - mounted rider may gallop hundreds of 
leagues, and scarcely meet an object to make 
him conscious that he has quitted the spot whence 
he has started. From Hungary he may urge his 
steed to the borders of Circassia without passing 
a grove of trees. From the Carpathians to the 
capital of Mongolia he will not once be gladdened 
by the sound of a stream. Grass, grass, grass, 
nothing but grass." 

Given a brilliant summer, we have conditions 



112 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

even transcending in cruelty the African Sahara 
or the South American prairies, for in neither 
of these does the moisture so completely dis- 
appear from the soil. In the African desert 
may always be found little providential pools of 
water, surrounded by a cluster of date-trees and 
luxuriant shrub ; but on the Russian steppe the 
fitful streams flow midst the grass, while from the 
parched and gaping earth not even a cactus or 
an aloe peeps forth into which a thirsty animal 
might bite to moisten its lips with the juice. 

Let us pass rapidly across these arid steppes 
to Little Russia and the country of the Ukraine, 
and witness our peasants marrying and giving 
in marriage there. 

A few words regarding the meaning of the 
word " Ukraine " must be inserted here, that one's 
readers may understand the signification of the 
term in its relation to the Russian peasant. 

In ancient times, when the ruling Grand Duchy 
of Russia had its capital in Kieff, the whole of 
Little Russia may have been united under one 
sceptre. After the fall of the old Duchy, a 
number of smaller principalities were formed — in 
Galicia, Vladimir, and Tchernigoff. These in 



VILLAGE LIFE 113 

time became a prey of the Tartars and the 
Poles — of the latter especially, who, after the 
decline of the Tartar Empire, gradually seized 
the whole of Little Russia. Oppressed by the 
Poles, numbers of the Little Russians — the 
unmarried particularly — young men capable of 
bearing arms {Kasakki)y wandered forth to the 
mouths of the Dniester, Don, and Dnieper, where 
they fought and plundered, partly on their own 
account, partly in the pay of others — Tartars, 
Turks, Poles, Great Russians. 

By degrees these Kasak or Cossack colonies 
spread themselves over the whole steppe to the 
south, as far as the Volga and the Ural, and 
one Cossack colony, under Yermak, conquered 
Siberia. As the empire of the Muscovites 
developed itself, the Kasaks became united with 
them, and now all own their sway, except a 
few beyond the Danube, who still serve the 
Padishah. Under those Tzars who drove back 
the Poles to the West, many of the Cossacks 
were formed into regiments, and established on 
the frontier or U Kraina to defend it against 
the latter. 

These Cossack settlements grew to be big 

H 



114 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

towns, and the Muscovites soon overstepped those 
border limits ; but the name of Ukraine still 
remains to that long strip of Little or Malo- 
Russia. Further, the Poles called their borders, 
fortified against the Turks and Tartars, the 
Ukraine, so that the name came to be used 
for all that portion of the country to the south 
of Kieff. Most of this country is now classed 
as Little Russia, but the name of Ukraine still 
exists, and may be called that tract of country 
including and lying to the south of the Govern- 
ment of Kharkoff. Indeed, Kharkofif is officially 
styled the " Capital of the Ukraine." 

It is to this country that I wish to transport 
my readers, to witness a peasant wedding. There 
stand the embarrassed pair — a peasant lad with 
his young bride-elect, and a crowd of musicians 
surround them, ready to play the nuptial strains 
throughout the livelong day. The musicians are 
accompanied by a master of the ceremonies, 
bearing a white wand, this personage being a 
never lacking item of the Ukraine or Malo- 
Russian wedding. All are decorated with gay 
flowers — pinks, lilies, asters — and following the 
bridegroom comes a lovely maiden, carrying a 



VILLAGE LIFE 115 

sword thrust through a loaf of bread — a symbol 
of connubial life never absent from these peasant 
ceremonies. This custom had its origin in the 
olden days, and was the means by which the 
bridegroom expressed to his love that he would 
defend her through thick and thin, and provide 
her with sustenance. Dinner soon follows the 
assembling of the guests and chief participants, 
and during this repast the cymbals, tambourines, 
and perhaps the balalaikas — a species of guitar — 
are hard at work. Now the procession forms 
anew, the dinner being ended, and the all- 
important ceremony is performed in the church. 

On emergence from the edifice, dancing becomes 
universal, and the music creates a deafening 
din, while all sing in chorus, and in the most 
beautiful harmony, the numerous ballads and 
ancient songs for which the Ukraine is so noted. 

The chief dance is called the Kasatsha, which 
is danced by one couple only at a time. The 
dancer selects his partner, and proceeds to 
execute a series of seductive motions around 
her, while she demurely hangs her head, refusing 
for a while to be seduced by his allurements of 
glance and gesture. At length she thaws, and 



1 



Ii6 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

begins to move in harmony with his most 
graceful movements. They bend and bow 
together, and swerve from side to side, the 
while performing a multitude of dainty gestures, 
depicting timidity and embarrassment, till finally 
from shy, half-tearful expressions of love, and 
fleeting glances from under their long eyelashes, 
they proceed to gaze with eyes expressive of 
the most burning devotion into each other's 
faces. Now the dance waxes fierce and fast; 
in and out they circle, and turn and twist, ever 
now and again reverting to that crouching 
posture so commonly seen in the dances of the 
peasantry all over Russia. Finally, they meet 
in close embrace, and whirl with incredible 
rapidity round and round till, thoroughly out 
of breath and dizzy from their efforts, they sink 
exhausted on a friendly bench. 

Enthusiasm reaches its height when the but 
lately married couple walk into the ring, and in 
their turn display their agility. Finally, all the 
girls of the village join hands, and indulge in 
that most graceful of Russian dances, the Vesndnka. 
The bride acts as leader, determines the varying 
figures of the dance, and is followed by her 



VILLAGE LIFE 117 

companions. Intricate mazes — in and out — now 
in a straight line, now curving this way, now 
that, now with their pretty feet in air, now with 
their heads of varied tinted hair sweeping the 
grassy sward, and then, with a simultaneous move- 
ment and with the most exquisite grace and 
dainty gestures, they crouch to the double upon 
their bended knees, and first this pretty ankle, 
adorned with coloured hose, and then the other 
protrude in quick succession, while petticoats and 
under garb of many and varied hue, ranging 
from brilliant red to purple and vivid green, are 
mincingly drawn aside displaying a well-turned 
leg and shapely calf. 

The gay scene goes on till fall the shades 
of night, then comes another feast, and the 
festivities are over. 

" How different to the other Russian wedding ! " 
you will say. True, but this is Southern Russia, 
please remember, and not the melancholy North. 
Russia, as I have said before, is a land of contrasts 
undreamed of by people outside its borders, and, 
to a great extent, unknown even by the Russians 
themselves. 

I shall but briefly touch on the subject of 



ii8 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

baptisms amongst the peasantry. Baptism follows 
very soon after the birth of the child. At the 
ceremony, seeing that the little morsel is, so long 
as it is unchristened, a heathen, the priest first 
requires it to renounce the devil and all his works. 
This the baby is naturally unable to do, so the 
godfather and godmother do it for him, and the 
church door is opened, that the devil having been dis- 
missed may escape without further contaminating 
the edifice. The priest turns round and spits at 
the retreating devil, and the rest of the people then 
spit likewise, and a prayer from the priest follows. 

The child is now in a neutral condition, and 
it is a problem to which kingdom his soul belongs. 
The evil spirit has left him, but the good spirit 
has not yet taken possession. Now follows the 
immersion. The whole party, preceded by the 
priest and the godfather, make a solemn pilgrim- 
age round the church three times, in the name 
of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then the 
priest consecrates the water and puts a metal 
cross in it, afterwards immersing the child three 
times, again in the three sacred names, and lastly 
bestowing the baptismal name. Then a clean 
and new white vestment is placed round the child, 




VILLAGE LIFE 119 

the priest previously holding the child and the 
garment on high, and saying : " Thou, child, art 
now as clean from evil as this shirt!" 

No Russian has more than one name. This 
custom rests upon the belief that each name has 
its representative in heaven, who is the guardian 
angel of all bearing that name. It is impossible 
therefore, they say, that any one should bear two 
names, because he cannot have two protecting 
angels, i.e. he cannot serve two masters. 

After the third immersion the child is a Christian, 
as a visible sign of which fact the priest suspends 
a small metal cross to the neck by a black string, 
and this is kept round the neck as a protective 
talisman throughout life. The baby is then 
dressed, the procession is repeated, burning tapers 
are carried before the child, and it is then anointed 
with holy oil — body, eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet 
— and from four places on its head the priest cuts 
a piece of silky hair. This is rolled up with a 
little wax into a ball and thrown into the font. 

Amongst the Esthonians a piece of asafoetida, 
which is looked upon as a charm, is hung round 
the neck of a newly-born child, and is believed 
to be productive of most beneficial effects. 



120 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Let me just revert to the subject of weddings, 
to relate briefly the customs of the Esthonian 
peasants in connection with the ceremony. The 
young girls begin their preparations for marriage 
while yet mere children. They often weave and 
spin for ten years to supply themselves with a 
sufficient number of stockings and handkerchiefs, 
etc., for a wedding dowry. Offers of marriage are 
made, not by the lover himself, but by some friend 
of his, or by her parents, who enter the house of 
the bride bearing meal and brandy. On their 
entry the bashful maiden hides herself The 
lover's proxy opens his proposal by inviting the 
inhabitants of the house to drink, and relating 
the story of a lost lamb or foal which he is 
seeking. If they refuse the invitation, and declare 
their ignorance of the lost cattle, it is a sign 
that they decline the offer. If they mean to 
accept it, they drink with the suitor, and give 
him leave to look about for his lost lamb. 
When found, the bride also drinks, and after a 
few days the bridegroom visits her, bringing her 
presents. 

On the wedding day both go separately to the 
church, and afterwards proceed to the house of 



VILLAGE LIFE 121 

the bride. Some of the women pour a can of 
beer over the horse's head, and scatter rye over 
the heads of the bridal couple. The marriage 
feast is then eaten, and masking and mumming 
occupy the day. The next day the bride, com- 
pletely muffled up in sheets and quilts, is taken 
home to her husband's house. Her brother acts 
as coachman. 

On arriving at her husband's house, she seats 
herself in her brother's lap, and her mother in 
due form invests her with the hood and costume 
of a matron. The bridegroom's hat is then placed 
over her hood, which she three successive times 
throws off her head, and receives again in token 
that she protests against the supremacy of man, 
but is willing none the less to tolerate it. A 
slight box on the ear is then given her, in token 
of the authority of her husband. In the evening 
she dances once with every guest and receives 
presents from each, and the day after the wedding 
night the young wife, attended by all her guests, 
makes the tour of the house, and sweeps up the 
hearth by way of initiation into her new duties. 

From weddings to funerals. At the burial of 
a Russian peasant, after the mournful procession, 



122 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

of the relatives, the priest at their head, through 
the village, all singing a mournful dirge, they 
enter the church precincts, and cluster round the 
grave, where many a quaint usage is adhered to. 
Parings of the deceased's nails are buried with 
him in order to assist him to clamber out of the 
grave up to heaven, and frequently a piece of 
a ladder is buried also in order to aid in the 
ascent. Money is sometimes thrown in at the 
last moment, the idea being that St Peter may 
be unwilling to unlock the gates of Heaven 
without a persuader in the form of coin. 

The Letts meet death with remarkable calm- 
ness, and the night watches of the relatives and 
friends over the dead body of the deceased recall 
to memory the funeral orgies of the Irish; the 
mourning, the singing, the drinking, the mingled 
grief and merriment, are the same. 

Further, the Letts have a day set apart in 
remembrance of departed souls. On this day 
they set out a feast for the dead, and place 
torches by their graves to light them to the 
banquet. They do no work, but sit cowering 
together, and fancy every noise they hear to be 
caused by the ghosts of the dead. 



VILLAGE LIFE 123 

As regards the Esthonians, the old practices 
and ceremonies of heathenism seem to have been 
retained amongst them more than amongst any 
other Lutheran people. All the trees, hills, and 
dales which were sacred in those days are so 
now, and many trees of ancient growth are con- 
sidered by them as the abode of mighty spirits. 
The Esthonians love to bury their dead far from 
the consecrated graveyards of Christianity, far 
from the haunts of man, in the depths of the 
deep forests, in obscurity and gloom. 

Thus the Russian peasant in his native village. 
Does he vary at all when migration leads him to 
the town ? Necessarily so, but not to any very 
great extent. One sees him there, his wits slightly 
sharpened by the town life, and the chief item 
of his character brought out into relief by this 
additional source of education is his cunning. 

Foreigners of all nationalities are always ready 
to apply the epithet "rogue" to the Russian, 
and the Russian trader — that is to say, the usual 
specimen of the class to be discovered in market 
or fair — knows that he is classed as a rogue, 
and so acts up to his reputation. There is no 
shame about him. If he can get four times 



124 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

as much as a thing is worth, he will get it, 
and cross himself religiously, thanking his patron 
saint. This inborn consciousness of roguery, 
combined with the universal mania for drink, 
has a very degrading effect on the morals of the 
Russian peasant when he wanders to the towns ; 
but with it all he is always contented and polite, 
and the slight veneer of polish which his life in 
town and city seems to give him also almost 
invariably provide a stimulant to his dormant 
nature, and as an effect renders him throughout 
the livelong day, as he sells his paltry trinkets 
and wooden utensils, full of gaiety and even wit. 
Listen to a Russian peasant endeavouring to 
cajole the passers-by into buying his goods : 
" Come, buy, buy ! I am a dreadful rogue ; but 
you cannot get these articles that I sell any- 
where in the market. Ha-ha I You smile and 
think you know all about it ; but, believe me, 
I will cheat you ; but you will be satisfied none 
the less. None can cheat so nicely as I ; but 
you will love me for it, for none in the market 
can sell a thing which is worth fifty kopeks for 
two roubles like I can. Come, pretty lady" 
(this with a seductive smile, which I have never 



VILLAGE LIFE 125 

seen any other people but Russians able to 
equal), "come, buy my wares. I am Ivan — 
Ivan Ivanovitch — the old trader that has stood 
here for years. Buy some trinkets or some fruit 
for your pretty children. These are English 
goods. They are really German, but who's to 
know that.? You don't know it, and your 
friends won't know it, so buy, and pay me, if 
you like, as if they were really English goods. 
You will be more satisfied, and — so shall I. 
How much are those apples and plums? Why, 
as I live, for you^ pretty lady — two roubles. 
They are Spanish, real Spanish ; but that is a 
lie, of course, for I am a Russian, and all 
Russians lie. Well, then, don't buy ; go else- 
where and pay four roubles. They are only 
worth one rouble, but I added another. If you 
had not been a sweet, pretty lady I should have 
said five. Ah ! that's right — take another," as 
the "pretty lady" buys for herself and children. 
" Do Svedaniah (good-bye). Tak (so). They were 
Caucasian fruits and Russian toys made at the 
Jewish manufactory at the end of the street. Oh, 
these pretty ladies ! I made one rouble sixty 
kopeks out of that deal. Come, come, buy my 



126 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

goods ; I have sold nothing all day, kind gentle- 
man," in a whining tone, altering his method as 
he gauges the newcomer to be a philanthropist. 
" Come, kind sir ; buy for the sake of my starving 
children " — and a tear actually falls down his 
furrowed, weather-beaten cheeks. The newcomer 
buys, and when he has departed, our friend the 
peasant pedlar laughs in glee : " What a rogue 
I am ! I've neither wife nor children to support, 
and I've got a stocking full of silver roubles. 
Oh, what a rogue ! what a rogue ! and what fools 
the people are ! " And so he goes on the live- 
long day, accusing himself of roguery, knowing 
full well that his apparent openness only attracts 
people to him. 

But I have given this slight sketch merely 
to show that the wit of the town peasant 
is decidedly more developed than his brother 
of the ploughed field and hamlet. And every 
stage of progress in the Russian peasant's career 
reveals in him qualities of which we, seeing him 
but as a village peasant, would believe him 
absolutely incapable. It only shows that we do 
not know what forces for good or evil lie buried 
in that thick skull. 



VILLAGE LIFE 127 

But my task, beyond making certain deductions 
towards the close of this little work, is not to 
dive into the future and surmise what will be. 
I have set out to tell my readers what actually 
isy what holds good to-day, at this very moment, 
in the peasant villages up and down Russia ; and 
from the slight sketch that I have given of the 
peasant's life, I trust that those who have sought 
information may have found it, and that that 
information has tended towards interesting them 
in the life habits and customs of that strange 
individual. 

Amongst people holding such primaeval and 
simple ideas as I have described in the pre- 
ceding pages, one might expect to find traces of 
some archaic system of living extant amongst 
them suggestive of old time. One would not 
be deceived. Russia's peasantry to-day exist 
under conditions which held good many centuries 
ago. The principle of the Commune and Mir 
predominates, notwithstanding all Ukases and 
Governmental circulars permitting this change 
and decreeing that, notwithstanding all laws of 
recent date regarding the abolishment of this 
self-same Commune, for the muzhik is as yet too 



128 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

ignorant to understand what is done for his 
good, and has not the intelligence to devise 
other means of village management more suited 
to modern requirements and modern civilisation ; 
and the Government and His Majesty the Tzar 
may continue to send forth streams of decrees 
and learned treatises, filling columns in the 
Norse Vremya^ and myriads of official documents 
stamped with the Imperial seal, but the muzhik 
will never, except in isolated instances, even 
hear a rumour of these Imperial dicta, for he 
cannot read, and the local Bureaucrats take very 
good care he shall not hear of anything that 
might make him act in any way prejudicial to 
their (the Bureaucratic) interests. 

Education must come first, and until the 
Government proceed to give the peasantry that^ 
instead of riding rough-shod over them with an 
iniquitous system of police and soldiery, and 
until Bureaucracy is once for all time abolished 
root and branch, nine - tenths of the Russian 
villages will continue to exist under that hope- 
lessly antique system on which I shall have 
more to say in another chapter — the Commune 
and Village Mir, 



VILLAGE LIFE 129 

To give an idea of that organisation, I will but 
touch on the subject. Each family in the Russian 
village has a Head or Big One, to whom all look for 
guidance. To him all matters of a purely family 
nature are deferred. But the property of the 
family consists mainly of their house, their kitchen 
garden, or ogorody and their household goods, 
together with the implements necessary for 
agriculture, and any cattle they may be fortunate 
enough to possess, besides, of course, farmyard 
animals — poultry, pigs, etc. Again, the heads of 
each family constitute the Village Council or Com- 
mune, and from this group is annually chosen one 
who is styled the Starosta or chief. To this 
Council all matters of importance are submitted. 

All the land belonging to the village is 
divided up amongst the peasantry at regular 
or irregular intervals, and it is not only so 
treated, but it is divided according to quality 
as well, so that one strip of land which may be 
richer than another piece is separated out into 
an infinite number of portions — so much for 
each peasant family according to its size and 
working ability — so that each peasant has so 
much to cultivate ; but that land is in no sense 

I 



130 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

of the word his, as we in England understand 
the law of property. The Commune decides 
when he may till it, when he may sow it, when 
he may reap it ; the peasant can neither purchase 
more land nor sell that which he has, or let it, 
without the consent of the Mir. In short, pro- 
gression on the part of a more intelligent peasant 
who wishes to better himself is absolutely barred. 
Further, under the Communal system, a man may 
not leave the village to gain a living elsewhere, 
or for other purposes, without the consent of 
this all - powerful community. The system is 
still further developed, but I shall dwell on it 
later on. 

Enough to know that in the twentieth century 
such an arrangement holds sway in a country 
extending over one-sixth of the world's surface ; 
enough to know that superstition, fostered by an 
ever willing, ever retrogressive Church, dominates 
the minds of 100,000,000 of God's creatures ; 
that ignorance prevails to an extent that to the 
civilised mind of Western Europe is absolutely 
incredible, and makes those who, like myself, 
have had opportunities of personally coming in 
contact with it, stand aghast at the bare possi- 



VILLAGE LIFE 131 

bility of such a condition in the twentieth century 
of the Christian era. We in England must go 
back to five or six hundred years ago to find 
a condition at all approaching the ignorance dis- 
played by Russia's masses to-day, and then we 
should not be able to draw a correct comparison, 
for Serfdom, thank God, never held sway in 
England, and consequently the results of that 
system are not imprinted on the minds and 
souls, habits and customs, of our free English 
labourer, agricultural and municipal, as they are 
in those of the Russian peasant at this very 
moment. 

How is it that this lamentable state of affairs 
remains to-day? How is it that, while the rest 
of the world has advanced slowly but surely — 
north and south, east and west — Russia has 
stood still or retrogressed, and is to-day, not- 
withstanding the wishes of the people for a 
more civilised state of affairs, still retrogressing? 
Reaction to-day is more a reality than ever it 
was before. Martial law is extant in numerous 
towns throughout the Russian Empire ; people 
are shot in dozens at the mere lifting of a 
finger of an impulsive, ignorant, and reactionary 



132 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

military official ; freedom of the person is a 
thing unknown, and those who would bring 
light and education to the Russian peasant are 
arrested, flogged, and, in many cases, exiled 
from home and family. 

How is this ? How can this be to-day — 1907 ? 

Let us dive into the past, into hoary antiquity, 
and search for the answer to this problem. 
Reasons there must be to have enabled this 
vast country to remain stationary in the race 
for progress and civilisation, and to have per- 
mitted its peasantry, its life-blood, to be sunken, 
swamped in the darkest ignorance, so that to- 
day Russia's villages are archaeological oases in 
a world of culture, civilisation, and refinement, 
and Russia's peasantry antiques, living in a 
world of their own, centuries behind the time. 



CHAPTER II 

HISTORY 

Antiques! Yes, the Russian muzhik is a veritable 

antique. We have but to dive back into the dim 

past, and see what History has to tell us of the 

origin of the denizen of the Russian villages of 

to-day, and should we need further evidence, 

take spade, pick - axe, and shovel to the plains 

of Southern Russia, round and about the Black 

Sea, the land of ancient tumuli or kurgdns, which 

here and there dot the surface of the arid soil. 

Only a short while back, while obtaining stones 

for barracks, by order of the Government, from 

one of these immense kurgdns in the province 

of Kertch in Southern Russia, some workmen 

in the process of destruction laid bare a tomb. 

They entered, and found themselves in the 

presence of an ancient King and Queen lying in 

state. 

133 



134 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Under a canopy, on a high dais, lay the pair 
in sarcophagi of wood. The cap of the King 
was ornamented with two bands ; on his neck 
was a collar of solid gold ; his hands were covered 
with golden rings. Beside him lay his kingly 
weapons — his sword with a golden handle, his 
golden sceptre, a shield of solid gold, and a 
golden bow-case. On the head of his Queen was 
the same sort of cap with beautiful golden 
fastenings. Her shapely neck was adorned with 
golden rings and fine golden medallions, while 
encircling both was a cloak ornamented with 
golden plates. The King and Queen were sur- 
rounded with numerous vessels of gold and silver, 
a musical instrument and five statuettes, the 
bones of an attendant, and those of a horse. 

I wish to draw attention to one of these vessels, 
a vase of beautiful workmanship, on which was 
depicted with all the skill of the ancient Grecian 
workmen the figures of soldiery attending to 
their wounds after a hard-fought battle. The 
soldiery represented on these vases are identical 
in dress, features, and method of wearing hair 
and beard, with the peasant of to-day. Their 
hair long, their beards flowing on to their chests, 



HISTORY 135 

their bodies encased in what look remarkably 
like sheepskins tied with a girdle at the waist and 
extending to the knee (short for more freedom 
of warlike action, no doubt), long sapogys or 
Wellingtons, into which the trousers are tucked — 
in fact, in every detail of garb and physiognomy 
similar to the muzhik of A.D. 1907. 

Who were these royal people, buried in such 
luxury, and surrounded by vessels on which are 
faithfully reproduced the features and dress of 
the peasant of to-day? 

Herodotus, in describing the tombs of the 
Scythian Kings, gives us a description almost 
identical with that which I have given above. 
Canon Rawlinson discourses on the tomb in his 
notes to Herodotus, and says that it dates back 
to B.C. 400-350, that the influence of Grecian 
workmanship is manifest, but that the treatment 
is purely Scythian. Professor Morfill concludes 
that the tomb probably belongs to one of those 
native kings who from B.C. 438-B.C. 304 held the 
Greeks of Panticapacum in subjection. 

Who were these Scythes? Herodotus tells us 
that in the fifth century before Christ the Greeks 
had established colonies on the northern banks 



136 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

of the Black Sea, and further north still were 
masses of barbarous people whom the Grecians 
called uniformly by the name of Scythes. Morfill 
says : " Of these Scythians, two tribes at least 
appear to be Slavonic — the Budini and the Neuri ; 
but it is impossible to identify, as do Samo- 
kvassoff and others, the whole Scythian race 
with the Slavs." What we can say with certainty 
is that the type as seen on the vases previously 
mentioned shows that they were certainly not 
Mongolian, as Hippocrates would have us believe, 
but Aryan. 

Further, we know that this race fought, traded, 
and made treaties with the Ancient Greeks ; that 
they were a powerful, fighting, nomadic race, and 
were of no mean calibre, successfully defying 
the powerful and well -trained legions of Darius 
Hystaspes. They worshipped a drawn sword, 
and sprinkled it with human blood ; they drank 
the blood of the first victims killed in war, 
scalped them, and preserved their skulls, and 
celebrated the deaths of their Kings by the most 
horrible funeral rites, amongst which may be 
noted the indiscriminate slaughter of slaves 
and animals. 



HISTORY 137 

Herodotus, dividing the Scythes into three 
groups, distinguishes the Royal Scythes as the 
class pre-eminent, who ruled their weaker brethren. 

There were other people whom one must 
mention, for they have a bearing on Russian 
History, and the origin of the Russian peoples 
of to-day. 

We must note the Melanchleni clothed in 
garb of black ; the Agathyrses, who wore 
ornaments of gold, and had wives in common ; 
the Issedons, who solemnly ate their deceased 
parents ; the Arimaspes, who had only one eye ; 
the Hyperboreans, who lived in regions where 
snow fell all the year round ; the Griffons, the 
Thyssagetes, the Massagetes, and the Jyrx, who 
lived only by the chase, together with the 
Androphages. Some of these emigrated west- 
wards, and now belong to the great Germanic 
race ; others remain in Eastern Europe, holding 
the names of Lithuanians, Slavs, and Turks. 

Thus authorities identify the Melanchleni with 
the Esthonians ; the Androphages with the 
Samoyedes ; the Arimaspes with the Voliaks ; 
the Massagetes with the Bashkirs; the Griffons 
with the Mongols ; whilst the Agathyrses are 
probably the Khazars. 



138 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

We must suppose that these varied peoples 
lived their lives in such peace as barbarity 
permits till the fourth century of our era, when 
the Goths founded a vast empire in Ancient 
Scythia, which was overturned in due course by 
the terrible Huns of Attila, who, on their 
dispersal, were followed by a mixture of peoples 
— Turks, Fins, Avars, Bulgars, Magyars, Khazars, 
etc., etc., formed, practically speaking, of the 
various branches of the ancient Scythian nation. 

From this conglomeration extricated itself the 
Slav, the forerunner of the Russian of to-day. 
The Grecian historians discourse on him. His 
race disputed in battle the authority of the 
Romans in the East. Nestor, the first Russian 
historian, in the twelfth century gives us details 
of the geographical distribution two centuries 
before him of the tribes which, forming a group 
apart from all other Slavs, have since received 
the name of the Russian Slav par excellence. 

At this epoch, between the Russian Slav and the 
Polish Slav there existed little difference. M. 
Koulick considers that it is the conquest by 
two different races of men, the adoption of two 
rival religions — that of Byzantium and that of 



HISTORY 139 

Rome ; the influence of two opposed civilisations 
— the Greek and the Latin — as well as the 
literatures and two alphabets, which has created, 
notwithstanding their common origin, two races, 
that have up to our times remained rivals, and 
been imbued from generation to generation with 
the spirit of irreconcileable enmity. 

The Slav, moulded by the Liakhs or Lechites, 
conquered by the Church of Rome and exposed 
to Western influences, has become the Pole ; 
the Slav, moulded by the Varangians, conquered 
by the Grecian Church, and exposed to Byzantine 
influence, has become the Russian ; but as to the 
aborigines living either on the banks of the 
Vistula or of the Dnieper, they were one and 
the same race, practising the same traditions, 
the same Paganism, and speaking almost the 
same language. The affinities of Russian and 
Polish idioms, between which the dialects of 
White Russia, Red Russia, and Little Russia serve 
as intermediaries, prove sufficiently an original 
brotherhood, which the rivalry of Churchdom and 
Governmental struggles destroyed. 

Before taking possession of the country to the 
north and east, the Slav had to struggle against 
the Letto-Lithuanians, Fins, and Turks. 



140 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

The first of these was part of the Aryan family, 
but distinct from the Germanic and Slav race ; 
from it hails the Lithuanian Lett and the 
inhabitants of Courland. 

The Fins were the origin of the Finnish race, 
which to-day peoples Livonia, Finland, Esthonia, 
Lapland. The Permians, the Tyrians, and the 
Samoyedes, Tcheremisses, Tchouvaches, Voliaks, 
Bashkirs, and Mordues, all Finnish offshoots, are 
similarly to-day extant, occupying as a sporadic 
state these regions which in the ninth century 
they inhabited in compact masses. 

These Tchondes and Fins are indeed the 
aborigines of Russia ; they form the ethnographic 
substratum on which has been built the Russia 
of to-day. The primitive Russians had as a 
basis for their religion Nature and its phenomena, 
and worshipped various gods — Dagh Bog, the 
Sun-God ; Stribog, the Wind-God ; and Morina, 
the Goddess of Death. Their ancient hymns tell 
of heroes and spirits, such as Moroz (the Russian 
word for " frost " to-day), the god personifying the 
terrible winter cold ; Baba Jaga, an ogress of 
terrible shape and size inhabiting the forests ; 
and other spirits good and bad, numbered 



HISTORY 141 

amongst which we find those described in the 
preceding chapter, spirits which have survived the 
march of Time, and hold these wretched dwellers 
upon earth in the same uncanny grip as they 
did far back in the dim, distant ages, centuries ago. 

Their customs were barbarous to a degree. 
Wives refused to outlive their husbands, but 
burned themselves alive on their funeral pile. 
Nestor, in classifying their characteristics, states 
that they were as animals, and that the men 
and women lived only for bestial pleasure. 
Polygamy was universal, and women went to 
the strongest, and were carried away by main 
force, traces of which custom are, as I mentioned 
previously, to be seen in the nuptial ceremonies 
of to-day amongst the Russian peasantry, whilst 
even in these remote times we have evidence 
of the existence of a village system of living 
akin to that of the Commune and Mir, which 
holds good, in a more advanced form, to this 
very hour. 

The centuries pass, and the Russian Slavs, 
eternally at enmity amongst themselves, decide to 
seek a king who shall be worthy to reign over 
them. 



142 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

In 862 A.D. Rurik, that scion of the bold 
Varangian Vikings from the Scandinavian fiords, 
was humbly implored to come with his bold 
buccaneers, and make the soil of Russia his 
own. He acceded to the request, and, arriving 
with a large force, established himself south of 
Lake Ladoga, not many leagues from where 
Petersburg now stands, and built a town, which 
he called Novgorod. Oleg, his brother, reigned 
after him, and laid the foundation of Kieff, 
dedicating it in these words : " This town shall 
be the mother of Russian towns." He then 
overthrew all the other branches of the Slav 
race, and united all the Russian people under 
his rule. 

The origin of the word " Russia " is rather 
doubtful. Luitprand says : " Graeci vocant Russos 
.... nos vero Normannos." Some claim that 
primitive Russia had its stronghold in Sweden, 
where they point to a locality called Roslog. 
The Swedes to-day are called by the Fins 
" Rootzi," but it is highly improbable that the 
" Russia " orginated in Sweden ; it was applied 
at a very early date to the country of the 
Dnieper. To come from Rouss or go to Rouss 



HISTORY 143 

are expressions met with in very ancient 
documents, and Rouss signifies here the country 
of Kieff. However, a very probable derivation 
is that from " Rosseje," which in Slav signifies 
"dispersion," expressing the nomadic habits of 
the ancient Russians. Oleg made two treaties 
with the Greeks, and in these, the text of which 
Nestor has handed down to us, we find the 
word "Rouss" used to designate the people of 
Russia. 

Be the origin of the word what it may, we 
at any rate know from this time forth in detail 
the history of the Russian peasant, and we see 
that his barbarism was polished by the advent 
of yet another barbaric nation — those Vikings 
who made their presence known even in England. 
Oleg dies, and Nestor, the faithful chronicler 
of the deeds of Ancient Russia, gives us the 
story of his death. 

"And Oleg lived, having peace on all sides, 
residing in Kieff. And Oleg remembered his 
horse, which he had entrusted to others to feed, 
himself never seeing him. For, a long time ago, 
he had asked the magicians and wizards, 'By 
whom is it fated that I should die?' And one 
of the magicians said to him : ' Prince, the horse 



144 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

which thou lovest, and upon which thou ridest, 
shall be the cause of thy death.' Oleg, receiv- 
ing this into his mind said, ' I will never ride 
the horse nor see him more.' And he ordered 
them to take care of the horse, but never to 
bring it to him again. And many years passed, 
and he rode him no more ; and he went among 
the Greeks. Afterwards he returned to Kieff, 
and stayed there four years, and in the fifth he 
remembered his horse, by which the soothsayers 
had predicted that Oleg would die, and having 
called the oldest of his grooms, he said : ' Where 
is my horse which I enjoined you to feed and 
take care of? ' And they said, * He is dead.' 
And Oleg laughed and blamed the soothsayer, 
and said : ' The wizard spoke falsely, and it is 
all a lie; the horse is dead, and I am alive.' 
And he ordered them to saddle his steed, for he 
wished to see the bones of his horse. And he 
came to the place where the bones and the skull 
lay unburied ; and he leapt from his steed and 
said with a smile, * How can a skull be the 
cause of my death ? ' And he planted his foot 
on the skull, and out darted a snake and bit him 
on the foot, and from the wound he fell sick 
and died. And all the people lamented with 
great lamentation, and carried him and buried 
him on the mountain called Stchekovitsa. There 
is his grave to this day, and it is called the 
' Grave of Oleg.' And all the years of his 
reigning were thirty and three." 




Bleenkoff and his Wife. 

.(One of Russia's peasant intellectuals.) 



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HISTORY 145 

The first light of a religious character is shed upon 
Russia with the advent of Olga. Says Nestor : 

"She was the forerunner of Christianity in 
Russia, as the morning star is the precursor of 
the sun, and the dawn the precursor of the day. 
As the moon shines at midnight, she shone in 
the midst of a Pagan people. She was like a 
pearl amidst dirt, for the people were in the mire 
of their sins, and not yet purified by baptism. 
She purified herself in a holy bath, and removed 
the garb of sin of the old man Adam." 

This quaint description of the virtues of Olga 
relates to her journey to Constantinople or Czar- 
grad (Tzar-gorod, Tzar-town), as the Russians call 
it, where she embraced Christianity ; but it was 
left to Vladimir not only to be received into the 
Christian fold, but to cause his people at the 
same time to be baptized, in 988 A.D. 

Where was our friend the peasant in these 
times? Had he appeared as a thing apart? 

Yes. What we may call the upper classes 

consisted of the royal Princes, the Droozhiny or 

followers of the Princes, the Boyars or barons, 

the MoorM or men, and the free people called 

Loodi. The lower classes were the peasants, 

called Smerdi (from Smerdiot, "to smell bad"), 

K 



146 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

and Moojiki, a disparaging diminutive of Moozh- 
man. Beneath these in rank were the slaves 
proper, consisting of those taken in war, bought 
or born on their masters' domain. War was, 
however, the principal source of slaves. It is 
chronicled that when the Russians made war on 
a people, they did not leave before destroying 
the place in toto — taking the women captive, and 
reducing the men to slavery. 

Following Vladimir came Jaroslaff, who gave 
Russia her first code of laws, called the Russkaya 
Pravda^ and in this — copies of which are extant 
— we find that trial by wager of battle and trial 
by ordeal were the most common way of settling 
disputes. There was a circuit for judges, and a 
fixed scale of values for different people accord- 
ing to their rank. Thus for killing a boyar or 
noble, the fine was eighty grivnas, a grivna 
being equal to a pound's weight of silver. A 
free Russian's life was worth forty grivnas, and 
a woman was only worth twenty grivnas. For 
a blow with the fist or the sheath or handle of 
a sword, for knocking out a tooth or pulling a 
man by the beard, the fine was twelve grivnas ; 
for a blow with a club, three. 



HISTORY 147 

Prince follows prince, and Russia goes on in 
much the same way. Vladimir Monomakh or 
Monomachus ascended the Throne in 11 13, and 
must be looked upon with more than ordinary 
interest by us, in that he married Gytha, the 
daughter of our King Harold of England, who 
was slain at the battle of Hastings. 

In these days, strange to say, Russia was on 
a level with the rest of Europe; but from this 
time onwards she was gradually to sink behind all 
other European nations in the race for proe^^'ess. 
The English, we find, had no further relations 
with Russia till the reign of Edward VI., and 
no further intermarrying was to take place till 
one of the sons of Victoria became the husband 
of the daughter of Alexander II. 

Vladimir Monomachus has come down to us 
as an author of no mean pretensions. I give an 
extract from his account of his own doings in his 
everyday life in those far distant days. Says he : 

" As to me, I accustomed myself to do every- 
thing that I might have ordered my servants 
to do. Night and day, winter and summer, I 
was perpetually moving about. I wished to see 
everything with my own eyes. Never did I 



148 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

abandon the poor or the widow to the oppres- 
sion of the powerful. I made it my duty to 
inspect the Churches and the sacred ceremonies 
of religion, as well as the management of my 
property, my stables, my vultures and hawks, 
with which I hunted. I have made eighty-three 
campaigns and many expeditions. I concluded 
nineteen treaties with the Polovtsi. I took captive 
one hundred of their princes, whom I set free 
again, and I put two hundred of them to death 
by throwing them into rivers. No one has ever 
travelled more rapidly than I have done. Setting 
out in the morning from Chernigoff, I have arrived 
at Kiefif before the hour of vespers. In my youth, 
what falls from my horse did I not experience! 
wounding my feet and my hands, and breaking 
my head against trees; but the Lord watched 
over me. In hunting, amidst the thickest forests, 
how many times have I myself caught wild horses 
and bound them together ? How many times have 
I been thrown down by wild oxen, wounded by 
the antlers of stags, and trodden under the feet 
of elks ? A furious wild boar rent my sword from 
my baldrick ; my saddle was torn to pieces by a 
bear. This terrible beast rushed upon my courser, 
whom he threw down upon me. But the Lord 
protected me. O my children ! fear neither death 
nor wild beasts. Trust in Providence ; it far sur- 
passes all human precautions." 

Thus writes the old Slav King, and we seem 



HISTORY 149 

to see those ancient days passing as a panorama 
before our eyes as we read. 

These were the happiest days of Russia. Soon 
she was to fall on evil times, and be submitted 
to hardships such as no other country in the 
world has had to run the gauntlet of; soon she 
was to feel the heavy hand of Oppression in 
many and varied forms, such as have not failed 
to leave their indelible mark on the Russian 
people of our own times ; and not only that, 
but she was to see the inauguration of a period 
of bondage, under which even to this very hour 
she finds herself groaning. Poor, unfortunate 
Russia had hardly begun to feel its way with 
uncertain, wavering hands from the gloom of 
barbarism, when, in the thirteenth century, came 
that terrible visitation which enthralled Russia 
for two hundred and fifty years, blighted the 
bud of progress, extinguished the spark of 
enlightenment, and ground her down under the 
heel of oppression, leaving her scarred with weals 
of woe, from which she has never recovered, and 
which she has never succeeded in healing. 

The Mongol invasion, for to this I allude, 
fell upon Russia as a clap of thunder in 1224. 



ISO THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Genghis Khan, after forty years of hard fight- 
ing, had united the Mongol hordes into one 
nation, and had overrun Manchuria, Northern 
China, Turkestan, Bokhara, and the plains of 
Asia up to the Crimea. His lieutenant, Tchepe, 
thirsting for glory and the praise of his master, 
marched round the Caspian by its northern 
banks, crossed Georgia and the Caucasus, and 
traversing the Russian steppes invaded the 
Polovtzi. These sought alliance with the 
Russians, their hereditary enemies, in order to 
repel them ; and the latter, led by the chief 
princes of the country, joined hands with them, 
and fought a great battle against the Tartars on 
the river Kalka, which empties itself into the 
Sea of Azof. The Russians were defeated with 
great slaughter, and the Tartar domination had 
begun. 

" God has put them into my hand," wrote the 
barbaric General to his master, the terrible 
Genghis. No truer words were ever uttered. 
The blossoming Russian nation became a vassal 
of barbarians, to whom they paid yearly tribute, 
and by whom, at frequently-recurring periods, 
they were visited in overwhelming mass — their 



HISTORY 151 

towns sacked, their families massacred, and their 
rulers made to cower with abject humility under 
their relentless heel. 

It surely will be of interest to my readers to 
learn in brief to what actually Russia had to 
submit during these centuries of thraldom, for if 
one wishes at all to understand Russia's position 
to-day, the character of its people, and the low 
state of education and morals, it is necessary to 
ascertain what effect the Tartar invasion had, 
and how far it is to blame for the condition of 
the peasant to-day. 

Then let us glance briefly at the conditions in 
which the Russians lived under the Tartar sway. 
Every Russian prince was compelled to journey 
to the Far East on his accession to the princi- 
pality, to pay homage and acknowledge submis- 
sion to the reigning Khan. All judgments of 
any serious nature had to be referred to the 
Khan or to one of his generals for confirmation. 

On visiting the camp of their Tartar masters, 
the Russians were awed by finding there not 
only Mongolians and Thibetans, but sometimes 
the ambassadors of the Khalif of Baghdad, of 
the Pope of Rome, and even the King of France 



152 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Han Carpin, Envoy of Innocent IV., says of the 
Court of Baty Khan on the Volga: "It is brilliant 
and immense ! His army is composed of 600,000 
men, of whom 150,000 are Tartars, and 450,000 
are foreigners, as many Christians as infidels." 
And this was but the seat of the Grand Khan's 
chief General ! 

The Court of the Grand Khan himself was 
inestimably finer and more numerous, and to 
this the wretched Russian rulers had to wend 
their way, humble suppliants, in terror of losing 
their heads — and very often doing so. The 
conquered nation was forced to pay a capita- 
tion tax, which weighed heavily on both rich 
and poor, for Tartar assessors fixed the sums 
according to the wealth of the individual. If, 
in the opinion of these assessors, the Russians 
did not pay in a given year what they might, 
word was sent to the Hordes, and immediately 
Russia was laid waste with fire and sword. 
Besides the tribute of money and goods, the 
conquered were compelled to supply their masters 
with a military contingent. Further, the people 
dared not have for their Prince a man who had 



HISTORY 153 

not received the Yarlikh^ or letters patent of the 
Grand Khan, as a sign of his investiture. 

To show how this principle, this spirit of 
degradation, had become engrained in the Russian 
people, it is only necessary to turn to the 
chronicles of that ancient city of Novgorod, 
whose inhabitants were the proudest of all 
children of the Russian soil. They had elected 
as their Prince, Michael, but discovering that 
he had not received the consent of the Tartar 
barbarian, they rejected him, saying : " We have 
chosen Michael, it is true, but on" condition that 
he shows us the Yarlikh!^' 

No Russian principality could undertake a 
war without the consent of the Tartar, and in 
fact Russia, as a whole, found itself forced 
to submit her every wish to the Horde for 
acquiescence in the project. 

A few deductions that may be drawn as to 
the results of this period of vassalage should 
prove of interest to my readers. What has 
been the effect as noticeable on the people of 
to-day? Briefly stated, the Mongol domination . 
bred the autocratic spirit in Russia; it was the 
direct cause of Autocracy, and indirectly the 



154 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

mother of Serfdom. Here we have at once the 
origin of those two institutions which have 
worked little but harm for Russia. 

The invasion, further, separated Russia from 
the West — from civilisation, from progress, and 
made it an Eastern dependency, a barbarian's 
fief. It had an undoubted effect on the 
character of the people ; a free, open, brave, 
and independent nature cannot possibly be 
bred of cringing humility. A man bound hand 
and foot, body and soul, cannot possibly develop 
character ; he develops cunning and intrigue and 
underhandedness. Karamsin, the great Russian 
historian, says : " The Princes of Moscow begged 
the humble title of slave of the Khans, in order 
that they themselves might become powerful 
monarchs." So that intrigue followed intrigue 
amongst the petty Russian rulers — anything, in 
order to obtain the smile and favour of the 
Grand Khan. Consequently prince was ranged 
against prince, people against people, which the 
wily Tartar rulers sedulously fostered, and which 
bred that germ of distrust betwixt man and 
man amongst the Russian people which is a 
trait so noticeable to this day. Meanwhile this 



HISTORY 155 

principle of patronage of the Khan to one 
or other of the Russian princes was gradu- 
ally leading to that state of things in which 
one prince held sway over the rest of his 
brother rulers. Says Sir Donald Mackenzie 
Wallace : " The first Czars of Muscovy were 
the descendants, not of Russian princes, but of 
Tartar khans." 

Finally one more effect of the invasion must 
be noted, and this by no means the least. The 
power of the Church was increased, for the 
Tartar, barbarian as he was, yet held the eccle- 
siastical ceremonies in great reverence, and in 
many instances attended the Russian fetes of 
Easter in state. 

Thus we have three institutions which, so 
far, have worked, balancing the advantages and 
disadvantages together, an incredible amount 
of evil, fostered and supported by the Tartar 
invasion. It would be no exaggeration to say 
then that that invasion changed Russia and the 
Russians from what they might have been ; the 
whole nation's character was altered during that 
terrible two hundred and fifty years, and was 
impregnated with such degenerate ideas that 



156 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

it became fitted to receive the further over- 
whelming blow which the sixteenth century was 
to bring in its train. 

Now are we to see the bonds of the Russian 
peasant, and indeed the Russian people as a 
whole, slowly but surely woven ; now are we 
to witness the gradual joining of link to link 
in the chain of servitude, till finally, say what 
the Russian apologists of to-day may, the country 
became without doubt a country of slaves — 
nothing less. 

The sixteenth century emerged from the womb 
of Time, and disclosed the world of Christendom 
torn with dissensions and strife. Look where 
one will, one finds division, sedition, oppres- 
sion, cruelty — brother against brother, father 
against children, nations divided against them- 
selves — all torn by conflicting opinions, born of 
the universally-dawning conscience, and bearing 
on those greatest of great principles — religion, 
education, progress, enlightenment, civilisation, 
and the rights of man. Luther, WyclifF, Calvin, 
made their names resound through Christian 
Europe, America is discovered, printing is 
established, the Tudors reign in England, 



HISTORY 157 

Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, and Louis XI. 
in France — all the Western nations of the great 
white race are sweeping in irresistible wave 
along the path of progress, but Russia remains 
enveloped in darkness, ignorant of these great 
events, and absolutely unaffected by them — its 
main object to exist, its main thought how best 
to dispose itself under a barbarian heel in order 
to avoid being crushed. 

August 25, 1539, saw the birth of that Prince 
of Moscovy of evil memory, Ivan the Terrible, 
a despot whose deeds of devilry have left a blot 
on Russian history never to be wiped out. In 
1543, at the age of thirteen, he began to assert 
himself during his minority, by having the 
guardians of his early youth murdered, and 
Russia already began to have a nameless dread 
of what the future might have in store for them 
under the rule of a Prince who bid fair to out- 
Nero Nero, and perform against his own country- 
men fiendish deeds. 

Moscow, which had been founded in 1 147, was 
now the Principality to which all owned sway, 
and the terrible Ivan styled himself " Tzar of 
all the Russias." The Tartar domination was 



158 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

weakening year by year, but Russia was passing 
under a yoke which in reality was ten times worse. 

Let us glance at a few of the pages of the 
life-history of this Ivan, for it is the life-history 
of Russia, and more especially the Russian peasant. 

Ivan was crowned in 1547, and marriage quickly 
followed. Fifteen hundred of the prettiest girls 
in the Empire were collected in a vast building 
in Moscow, and Ivan, accompanied by a courtier, 
passed from room to room, examining with a 
critical eye the lineaments and figures of the 
expectant damsels. His choice fell on Anastasia 
Kochkin, but the first of some eight to ten wives 
that graced the imperial couch ; but marriage 
with a delicate woman was not to soften this 
man's nature. Cruelty was his bent, his first 
love, his food. Surrounded by a band of blood- 
thirsty retainers called Opritchniki^ he was accus- 
tomed to sally forth amongst the villages and 
commit crimes which only his imagination could 
give birth to — men were massacred, women out- 
raged, children transfixed on pikes ; and then 
would this fiend return to his palace and indulge 
in the vilest of orgies with his myrmidons. A 
few instances will suffice. 



HISTORY 159 

The town of Novgorod had aroused in Ivan's 
heart a suspicion of treachery. Therefore in 
1570, in the depth of winter, the Tzar marched 
thither across some hundreds of miles of country, 
devastating the country on either side. Arriving 
at the town, the priests and deacons were removed 
from every monastery, and sent to gaol, with 
orders that they should be bastinadoed day and 
night. They were then ordered to pay certain 
sums of money for their freedom. A" hideous 
fate awaited those who could not. 

On 6th January every priest or monk remaining 
in gaol was flogged to death. Next, the secular 
clergy were cast into prison, including the Arch- 
bishop. 

Now commenced an orgy of diabolical crime. 
The townsfolk, led before Ivan a hundred at a 
time, were partially roasted over a slow fire, then 
taken away, flogged, and drowned. Covered with 
blood and gasping, they were bound on sleighs, 
driven to a spot where the ice had been broken, 
and were cast into the river, the children being 
tied to their mothers and drowned with them. 

These massacres lasted five weeks, and the 
"First Chronicle of Pskoff" reckons the number 



i6o THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

of victims at 60,000. There is extant a document 
left by the monarch himself, in which, as was 
his custom, he enumerates the list of his principal 
victims. He was in the habit of sending these 
lists to the monasteries, requesting the monks' 
prayers for the souls of those destroyed. 

As regards Novgorod, the list of prominent 
personages, preserved at the Monastery of St 
Cyril to this day, number 1500. The rest were 
of course of no account — peasants ! Glance at 
the pages of this iniquitous document. After 
the names of the victims come such details as 
" with his wife," " with his wife and children," 
" with his daughters," and so on ad infinitum, 

Moscow was deemed by the monarch to harbour 
accomplices of the treachery of Novgorod ; then 
Moscow must suffer. June 25, 1570, saw three 
hundred wretched citizens standing in chains in 
the Red Square of that ancient town. Ivan 
appeared in state, but to his chagrin the Square 
was lacking spectators ; the people had fled like 
frightened rats to the furthest corners of the town, 
where they panted in nameless fear. There were 
the instruments of torture — the stoves, the red- 
hot pincers, the barrels of tar, the iron claws, the 



HISTORY i6i 

cords which were destined to rub human bodies 
asunder, the great coppers full of boiling water 
— all were there — but no people. 

Then Ivan in a rage ordered the Opritchniki to 
prod the terror-stricken citizens from their hiding- 
places, and drive them to the scene of torture. 
This was done, and many thousands having been 
thus collected, the sport began. Viskovatyi, the 
Court Chancellor, was hung up by his feet and 
cut in pieces. Founikoff, the Treasurer, was 
sprinkled alternately with iced and boiling water 
"till his skin came off like an eel's" (Guagnino). 
The Treasurer's wife, being unable to disclose where 
her husband's wealth was hidden, was stripped, 
and in the presence of her daughter set astride 
on a cord stretched between two hooks and 
drawn to and fro till she died. An Englishman, 
De Horsey, states that he saw one man — 
Prince Boris Telepnieff — impaled and lingering 
on the stake for fifteen hours, while his own 
mother was violated by the soldiers before his 
eyes. 

Oderboru (Joannis Basilidis vita. Vitebsk, 
1585) tells of the destruction of the German 
suburb of Moscow in the following words : 



i62 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

" Young girls were violated and put to death 
before Ivan's eyes, who aided in the massacre 
by thrusting the victims through with his hunt- 
ing spear. Many women were flogged till the 
blood ran ; their nails were torn out, and when 
they called on the name of Jesus the monster 
had their tongues drawn out by the roots. At 
last they were killed with lance-heads heated 
red-hot and thrust into their bodies. Philip, the 
noble Metropolitan of Moscow, alone braved the 
monarch's ire. One Sunday (31st May 1568) 
Ivan entered the Cathedral of the Assumption, 
and asked for the great priest's blessing ; but 
Philip held his peace. Three times Ivan requested 
him to speak, but without avail. At last, when 
the boiars reproached him, the Pontiff broke 
the silence, and in a thundering voice rained 
denunciations on the monarch's head, enumerating 
all his crimes and deeds of vile debauchery. 
* Hold thy peace ! ' commanded the enraged 
sovereign. ' If the living souls were to hold 
their peace,' said the priest, 'the very stones of 
the Church would speak and cry out against thee.' 
' Hold thy peace ! ' said the Czar ; ' that's all I 
say to thee, and give me thy blessing.' ' My 
silence lays a sin upon my soul, and calls down 
thy death.' ' Hold thy peace ! My subjects, my 
kinsmen rebelled against me — rebel no more 
along with them, or quit thy See.' * I never 
asked to be put into this See. Why didst thou 
call me from my Hermitage?' The inevitable 



HISTORY 163 

followed : the Metropolitan was submitted to a 
sham trial, at which the bishops of Novgorod, 
Souzdal, and Riazin appeared as witnesses, and 
the bold ecclesiastic was condemned and burned 
to death. Ivan's own relatives were not spared : 
his sister-in-law fell a victim, and, as a crowning 
feat of devilry, he killed his only son with his 
hunting spear." 

And so affairs went on; and amidst it all we find 
Russia spreading her dominions, vanquishing the 
Tartars, and exciting interest amongst the Western 
nations. Our own Queen Elizabeth was anxious to 
know more of this strange country, and not infre- 
quently sent messages to Ivan by the hand of 
special envoys. Anthony Jenkinson, an English 
merchant, has left us an account of Ivan's Court : 

"The Emperour dined in a faire Hall, in the 
middest whereof was a pillar four square, very 
artificially made, about which were divers tables 
set, and at the vppermost part of the Hall sate 
his brother, his Vncles Sonne, the Metropolitaine, 
the young Emperor of Casan, and divers of his 
noble men all of one side. There were divers 
Ambassadors and other strangers as wel Christians 
as Heathens diversely apparalled, to the number 
of 600 men, which dined in the said hall, besides 
2CXX) Tartars, men of war which were newly come 



i64 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

to render themselves to the Emperour, and were 
appointed to serve him, but they dined in other 
hals. I was set at a little table having no stranger 
with me directly before the Emperour's face. Being 
thus set and placed, the Emperour sent me divers 
bowles of wine and meade and many dishes of 
meat from his own hand, which were brought me 
by a Duke, and my table seemed all in golde 
and silver, and so likewise on other tables there 
were set boles of golde set with stone, worth by 
estimation 400 pounds sterling, one cup, beside the 
plate which served the tables. The Emperour and 
all the Hall throughout was served with Dukes, 
and when dinner was ended the Emperour called 
mee by name and gave mee drinke with his own 
hande, and so I departed to my lodging." 

Thus Ivan the Terrible kept his Court and 
fed, while peasants cringed in holes and crannies, 
and starvation ran rife, for Russia at this period 
was oppressed by one long series of terrible 
famines. To these privations, as we have seen, 
Ivan added these terrible tortures. He kept a 
large standing army for the defence of the Empire, 
and taxed, by the most scandalous system of 
extortion, his wretched subjects to pay for its 
support. Ivan, in order to increase his revenue, 
established drinking-shops for the sale of vodka, 
where, and where alone, the peasants were com- 



HISTORY 165 

pelled to go to drink the fiery liquor and spend 
their earnings. Vladimir had already written : 
" Roussi vessele poetee : nee mojet bez tavo byt." 
("Russia's joy is drink: she cannot exist without 
it") 

We read in an account of the time (15 51) that 
at the church feasts men and women, boys and 
girls, spent the night in some out-of-the-way 
spot, dancing, singing, indulging in every form 
of sensual excess, and then the following words 
follow : " When dawn came, they ran shouting 
like mad folk down to the river, where they all 
bathed together, and when the bell rang for 
matins they went back to their houses, and there 
fell down like dead people of sheer exhaustion." 

I would refer my readers to the Feast of 
Masslenitsa, described in the previous chapter, 
in order that they may draw their own com- 
parisons and conclusions regarding the progress 
of the peasants since that time. 

What constituted the peasantry at this period ? 
There was the peasant proper, or very small 
farmer, who had the free disposal of his property 
so long as he paid the State and Communal 
taxes. Then came the agricultural labourers; 



i66 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

and lastly, the slaves — prisoners of war, etc., 
before enumerated. 

The peasants proper differed from the agri- 
cultural labourers in having land in property 
or usufruct, and they belonged to that ancient 
system — the Commune. Some possessed land 
of their own, some were settled on the lands of 
proprietors or monasteries. The important point 
is that at this time the peasant was free — legally 
free. He was free to change his domicile, free 
in person, free to buy land, and free to migrate 
from spot to spot. 

Free to migrate! There we have one of the 
original causes of Universal Serfdom, which was 
slowly but surely creeping to its accomplishment. 
Boris Godunoff, the successor of Ivan, is generally 
blamed for the deed, but it was no more the 
single act of Boris Godunoff than it was that of 
Queen Victoria. It was the consequence of 
political and economic causes, acting in this 
barbaric country with a force and certainty which 
proved irresistible, so that we find Russia almost 
imperceptibly being enthralled in the bonds of 
Serfdom — nay, slavery — at a time when the rest 
of Europe was just emerging from its feudal fetters. 



HISTORY 167 

Liberty, as the sixteenth century advanced, became 
but a meaningless name amongst the Russian 
people. Princes and boyars, merchants and 
people, and above all the peasants, lost the taste 
of it. Nobles and muzhiks alike handed petitions 
to the King with the words "your slave." And 
in direct proportion as the nobles were the slaves 
and tools of the King, so were the peasants the 
slaves of the nobles and proprietors. Ivan had 
brought the proud aristocracy, the princes of the 
blood of Rurik, to the level which deprived them 
of all measure of self-respect ; and in order to stop 
the breed of nobility, the heads of Russia's most 
eminent families were forbidden to marry. 

War is an expensive luxury, and so taxation 
was carried to extreme, and the peasantry were 
not only tortured to provide the nobles with 
money, that they in their turn might supply the 
King, but in numberless cases their lands and 
goods were taken and given to the retired 
soldiery. Then, as the sixteenth century 
advanced, the peasantry, unable to bear the 
oppression, began to emigrate eastward — their 
last resource, and the last step previous to 
Serfdom ! 



i68 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

We have seen that the land paid for all ; then 
some one must work the land. He who had 
most land was taxed most ; then he who had 
most land must have most labourers. Conse- 
quently those who had most money or power 
seized or attracted the peasants of the weaker 
owners. Then the Communes began to refuse 
leave to the peasants to emigrate or change their 
village, and the proprietors began to use force, 
and act under imaginary legal formalities. 

The peasant who came to work for a proprietor 
rarely had implements to labour with, or capital 
to feed himself during the ensuing harvest. Then 
he borrowed, and the debt was converted into a 
bond, which held him in a vice. Peruse the laws 
relating to debt. All who have known debt will 
thank God they were not debtors living in Russia 
in those days. 

The insolvent debtor was bound naked to a 
stake in the public square and beaten three 
times a day. This was repeated for thirty days ; 
then, if no one appeared to pay for him, he 
could be sold as a slave ; if no one bought him, 
he became the slave of the creditor. For theft, 
the criminal could be hung, beheaded, impaled. 



HISTORY 169 

drowned beneath the ice, or knouted to death. 
The woman who killed her husband was buried 
alive ; the noble who killed a peasant was fined ; 
but the peasant who killed a noble died to the 
accompaniment of every conceivable form of slow 
torture. 

Thus Russia, with its dreary wastes, its vast 
extent, its scarcity of population, its forbidding 
climate, which forbad intercourse, bred weakness 
born of isolation, fostered credulity and blind 
obedience to the Church and superstitious 
ceremonial, became in reality before the days of 
Boris Godunoff, a Russia of slavery. 

It was a recognised thing for a peasant, on 
meeting a noble or a landowner — Pomiestchik^ 
as they were called — to turn his back, so that 
his face might not see that of such a superior 
being, and further to prostrate himself on the 
ground before him. Giles Fletcher tells us that 
there were numberless villages, distributed over 
one hundred miles of country outside Moscow, 
which were nude of inhabitants, they having fled 
from the Tzar and his nobles. If a noble 
committed a murder " in high life," he could and 
did transfer the sentence to one of his peasantry. 



170 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Sometimes two were executed, and then the 
sentence was considered fully expiated : it was 
considered, as it were, that two of his most 
valuable pieces of property had been taken from 
him ; but that human life had been sacrificed — 
No! It was further ordained that all members 
of the same peasant family were to be punished 
alike for the crime of one of them. 

The transmission of the principles of despotism 
from the highest to the lowest was seen in the 
fact that a Russian peasant was as much an 
autocrat in his izba as was the Tzar on his 
throne. There was a law which allowed fathers 
to sell their children, so that children were actually 
born slaves. 

The Russian women were as dogs in the eyes 
of all men ; they were submitted to a system 
of slavery as barbarous as could be found 
obtaining in Eastern climes. Giles Fletcher 
says : " Harshly and cruelly used by the upper 
classes, the nation has grown harsh and cruel 
to its equals, and especially to its inferiors." 

Woman was par excellence the inferior in the 
peasant household, as throughout Russia in all 
classes. The Byzantine ideas had been borrowed 



HISTORY 171 

largely. Solon's aphorism that "the wise man 
thanks the gods that he is a Greek and not a 
barbarian, a man and not a beast, a male and 
not a female'^^ was marked, learned, and acted 
upon by the Russian people of those times. 
Russia carried out to the full the Eastern idea 
embodied in the statement that "a woman 
is a net to tempt men. With her clear face and 
high -set eyes she works spells. What is a 
woman? — a viper's nest." And the poor woman 
of the sixteenth century was treated as a snake, 
and spurned accordingly by high and low. 

Thus it will not be difficult to realise that 
the change from a nominal freedom to an actual 
serfdom was easy of accomplishment. 

How was the last link forged? 

It has been said that the Tzar gave land to 
those who served him, but in reality the value 
of the land depended on the number of souls 
(as a working unit was called) who worked it. 
The gift was actually counted in souls. A noble 
might have so many souls given him ; say, an 
estate with a hundred peasant families. Then 
suppose fifty of these families migrated to a 
neighbouring owner or to a distant region, then 



172 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

the value of the gift was diminished by fifty per 
cent, and the noble was unable to fulfil by so 
much the less the obligations imposed on him. 
Then said the Tzar and the nobles and the 
Pomiestchiki'. ^'This system, under which the 
peasant is a free man, and can move where he 
pleases, is an impossibility." So it came about 
that tradition and the law was disregarded on 
all sides. Force ruled. The inevitable followed. 
It only needed a law to make lawlessness 
legal. 

When Boris Godunoff came to the Throne 
after Ivan's death, he completed the chain of 
serfdom by forging the last link in the shape 
of his famous Ukase forbidding emigration, by 
which the peasants were tied to the soil and 
to their village, and were degraded to a 
condition in which actually and legally they 
were slaves. 

Following on the reigns of Ivan and Boris 
Godunoff came a stormy period of civil war, 
bred of the fact that usurpers were on the 
Throne, which yet other usurpers wished to 
occupy. This unhappy state of affairs proceeded 
until the advent of the first Romanoff, who, by 



HISTORY 173 

the unanimous wish of the people, was elected 
Tzar in 161 3. He, and a series of similar 
nonentities after him, reigned — it is all that can 
be said of them — rulers who permitted the slight 
wave of progress produced by the influx of 
foreigners from the West during the latter part 
of Ivan's reign and that of Boris to be swamped 
in a whirlpool of reaction ; and Russia steadily 
sank back till the advent in 1682 of the Great 
Peter. 

This wonderful man entered at once upon a 
drastic — a too drastic — period of reform. His 
main idea was to produce order in his adminis- 
trative departments throughout the Empire, or 
rather to create administrative departments after 
the style of Western states. 

Unfortunately for Russia, his choice fell on 
the German system, and Russia found herself 
blessed temporarily, but cursed permanently, with 
a Bureaucracy. 

I shall have a few words to say about this 
system in my concluding chapter, so shall not 
touch on it here, except to say that it has 
proved the curse of Russia, and, with the 
exception of bringing in its train, at its outset. 



174 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

a temporary and very artrficial cohesion in the 
confused administrative affairs of the Empire, 
has bred nothing but corruption and reaction 
in unhappy Russia. 

Peter fought against gigantic obstacles, which 
only a genius and an autocrat could have 
surmounted. He employed his giant will and 
his terrible power unmercifully in the carrying 
out of what he deemed good for his people. 
On every page of his Ukases we read as 
penalties ordained for disobedience to his orders 
the knout and death. He created schools ; 
abandoned the Slav alphabet — he had typo- 
graphic machines brought from Holland ; he 
founded hospitals and societies of all kinds. 
But none of these reforms reached the peasant. 
His great civil and military reforms needed 
money, and the peasant's toil supplied it. He 
replaced the tax on households by a tax on 
souls, and bonded the different classes of 
peasantry into one mass, so that they all at 
last belonged to the one definite category — slaves. 
The proprietors were made responsible for their 
peasants' poll-tax, and thus the law soon became 
that the unfortunate beings for whom they were 



HISTORY 175 

responsible were theirs in the sense of goods and 
chattels. 

All serfs were made to enter a Commune, 
and the Commune was made answerable to the 
proprietor for the taxes demanded of them. 
Many now began to run away, but Peter had 
them severely flogged and sent to the mines ; 
and the proprietors received the right to send 
them — for any offence whatsoever, and without 
trial — to the mines for ever. Peter died, and we 
will pass over the succeeding mediocre person- 
alities who filled the Russian Throne till Catherine 
II. appeared on the scene. 

This remarkable woman during her thirty-four 
years' reign created for herself, by reason of her 
unique personality, her deeds good and bad, and 
her great schemes of reform, a reputation which 
can never die as long as Russia remains a nation ; 
but notwithstanding this fact, it remains undoubted 
that the oppression of the peasantry reached its 
height during her reign. This, however, as I 
hardly need point out, cannot be attributed entirely 
to Catherine. Economic causes, and the events 
happening during the many decades leading up 
to her reign, contributed to bring about this 



176 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

climax ; and notwithstanding all Catherine's efforts 
to reform her country, not one stroke was accom- 
plished on behalf of the Russian peasant, who 
steadily went back. 

Serfs were now regarded as their masters' im- 
movable property, and were given, bought, and 
sold, in tens, in hundreds, and in thousands, singly 
or in families. Peter in a Ukase announced : 

"If one cannot abolish slavery completely, then 
slaves must be sold in families without separating 
the husbands and wives, the parents and children, 
and not as beasts of the field, a thing which is 
done nowhere else in the wide world." 

But in the reign of Catherine this was dis- 
regarded. There was no law for the peasant ; 
he became an animal, and was treated as such. 

Let us glance at a few of the trials under which 
the peasant laboured in this reign, and see to 
what incredible tortures he had to submit. 

Firstly, whereas in the days of Boris they 
worked three days for the proprietor and three 
for themselves, they now worked all the week 
for their master until his labour was finished, 
when, as often as not, it was too late for their 
own work. Proprietors could sell the father or 



HISTORY 177 

mother of a family, but were permitted by law 
to retain the children or sell them at prices, 
according to age, ranging from five to twenty 
roubles. 

Many thousands of serfs, when too old to work, 
were packed off to Siberia for some imaginary 
offence, and of course died on the way. In 1767 
the place of exile was changed from Nertchinsk 
to Tobolsk by the Government, and proprietors 
were specially notified that the Government 
wished to populate that province. The result 
was a stream of serfs from all the inhuman pro- 
prietors in the kingdom — for not only were the 
majority of these too old to work, but for each 
one sent the Government gave so much, and 
relieved the proprietor of the obligation to send 
one recruit to the Army. The proprietors made 
their own laws, vide a few culled from the Law- 
book of Count Rumiantseff: 

" Theft. — To go as recruit to the Army, and be 
kept in chains, on bread and water, for a period." 

^'' For insulting a neighbouring proprietor. — To be 
whipped cruelly {Zhestoko)." 

" For insulting the bailiff. — Fine of fifty Kopeks 
— an immense sum to the poor peasant." 

M 



178 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Petitions to proprietors were strongly objected 

to. The wife of General Tolstoy ordered all 

petitioners to be sent to another estate, and to 

have their hair and beards shaved, and " a spiked 

collar placed round their neck " for a stated period, 

"so that they cannot sleep." Princess Dashkoflf 

had her peasants dashed against the stove, so 

that their skulls were broken, and chained other 

unfortunates to posts for lengthy periods. In 

other Law-books we read such items: 

"(i.) For asking for key when the gospodeen 
(master) slept, — One rouble fine. 

" (2.) Thekla Jaklovitch — {^for entering the room 
when the gospodeen slept) — henceforth lose her 
name, and be styled poltroon and liar, and if 
anybody calls her by name that person is to be 
beaten with rods (5000 strokes) unmercifully. 

"(3.) If a serf omits to fast at the proper time 
and for the period ordained by the Church, he 
or she must fast for a week and receive 5000 
strokes unsparingly. If after this he lies down 
for a week he will receive 100 lashes with the 
whip or 17,000 with the birch. If he then lies 
down for another week, he will receive yet another 
50 with the lash, or 10,000 with the birch ; and 
if he then lies down, then, for every day he does 
so, he will receive neither bread nor provisions^ 
and money will be extracted from his salary." 



HISTORY 179 

Needless to say, death intervened as a general 
rule before the execution of these sentences in toto. 

Were there any punishments for these inhuman 
proprietors ? 

Yes, of a sort. In the Public Law -Book 
(Army Regulations, cap. xix.) we read : 

"The Court must examine carefully with what 
weapons the deceased was killed — why he died 
so easily, and must ascertain how it was possible 
for him to die so easily {sic). If it happens that 
some officer wishes to beat his subordinates for 
some reason, but does so with so much zeal 
that the punished one dies, then he is deprived 
of his rank, with money fine or confinement." 

Petitions to Catherine were frequent from the 
distressed peasantry, but she seems to have got 
tired of these wails of despair, and to have 
hardened her heart, and taken the side of her 
nobility and the proprietors. At any rate, she 
issued a stern Ukase to the effect that serfs were 
not to be permitted to complain of their masters. 
This did not stop the flood of petitioners, who 
marched from all directions to Petersburg to 
present their complaints to her. I choose one 
alone from the mass of material at hand. 



i8o THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

In 1767 the peasantry of Count Alexis Lapuchin 
petitioned the Empress that, rather than leave 
them to the mercy of their master, "will your 
Majesty order us to be killed or exiled for 
ever ? " 

Catherine in reply ordered "half of them to 
be whipped publicly with rods in the market- 
place and other squares in Moscow, and the 
other half to be whipped in the villages in 
presence of the peasants ; and then send them 
to hard labour in the Siberian mines." 

Why wonder at the rebellion of Pugatcheff, 
that peasant leader, who ranged thousands of 
muzhiks under his rebel standard to fight against 
the Government, when Russia's Queen spoke 
thus? 

It seems evident that towards the end of her 
reign Catherine hardened her heart, like Pharaoh 
of old. Of the author of A Journey from 
Petersburg to Moscow^ a vivid sketch of the 
lamentable condition of the peasantry between 
those towns, she wrote : " There he goes weep- 
ing about the mournful destiny of the peasant, 
although it is beyond argument that a better 
destiny than our peasants have, under a good 



HISTORY i8i 

proprietor {sic)^ is not to be found in the wide 
world." 

One can only say that Catherine said this 
either in a cruel spirit of cynicism or that she 
had unnatural ideas of the rights of man, and 
especially of that man as represented by the 
Russian peasant. Needless to say, Catherine's 
reign terminated leaving the peasant in a worse 
condition than he had ever been in since the 
inauguration of Serfdom. 

Paul, a man of eccentricities, fads, and fancies, 
rather than a ruler, bridged the space between 
Catherine and the nineteenth century. Never- 
theless, in his reign came the first sign of a 
reaction in favour of the peasant. 

By an Imperial Ukase Paul ordained that 
peasants should not work more than three days 
a week for their masters, and further endeavoured 
to curtail the power of the latter. 

But in the beginning of 1800 we find Russia 
in as bad a state and position as ever. An 
author of this period writes : 

" Russia, degraded by ages of slavery, resembles 
those degenerate animals, to whom the domestic 
state has become a second nature. It must be 



i82 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

gradually and by long and difficult paths that 
he returns to liberty ; he is yet a stranger to 
the import of the word. To him to be free 
signifies to be able to quit the glebe to which 
he is chained, and lead a vagabond life. Work 
he detests, because he has never worked for him- 
self. He has not even an idea of property — his 
fields, his goods, his wife, himself, his children, 
belong to a master who can dispose of them, 
and who does dispose of them, at pleasure. He 
is interested in nothing, because he possesses 
nothing ; his attachment to his village is that of 
an ox to the crib to which he is accustomed. 
He is without country, without laws, without 
religion. Christianity, as taught and practised 
amongst the Russians, no more deserves the 
name of religion than the sound which the 
carman uses to direct his horses deserves the 
name of language. Russia is now the common 
asylum of the ignorance, the barbarism, the super- 
stitions, and the prejudices that persecuted Europe. 
The man who carries into these climes something 
of knowledge and sentiment finds it extinguished. 
The despot makes him a grant of a few hundred 
souls — the price of his own. He thinks it very 
just, and very fortunate that there should be 
slaves and that he is one himself" 

Further, we read : " The peasant is absolutely 
without morals," and again he says : 

"What has disgusted me is to see men with grey 



HISTORY 183 

hair and patriarchal beards lying on their faces 
with their trousers down, and flogged like children. 
Still more horrible ! there are masters who some- 
times force the son to inflict this punishment on 
the father. These and many other horrid acts are 
committed, especially in the country, where the 
lords in their castles exercise the same authority 
over men as over animals." 

Of the Russian soldier he says : 

"Once dragged from his hut and all that are 
dear to him, he must grow old under the severest 
discipline, if he do not fall by the enemy's sword. 
If he be married, scarcely will he have quitted his 
wife before his master may have given her to 
another. The soldier never obtains furlough, so 
that if he has children he will never see them 
again. Whether he guide the life-supporting 
plough or handle the destructive musket, the 
Russian is fettered, and trembles under the lash 
of a master. All the qualities of his heart are 
withered, and his tenderest feelings outraged." 

And this condition of affairs held sway through- 
out the reign of the charitable but weak-minded 
Alexander I. The latter made efforts for the 
peasant's good, but these efforts were frustrated 
by the actions of the men who were his counsellors, 
particularly such men as Count Araktcheyeff, so 



i84 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

that in 1823 we find Nicholas, the incarnation of 
Autocracy and Reaction, ascending the Throne 
without any material improvement in the muzhik's 
condition having been achieved. And now things 
went back with a run. That iniquitous Police 
system, so odiously peculiar to Russia, was in- 
augurated ; a censorship was instituted for the 
suppression of all foreign literature and papers. 
All writings were subjected to a relentless 
scrutiny, and any book, journal, or paper con- 
taining even the ghost of an opinion which 
might by any conceivable process of twisting be 
termed dangerous, or contrary to the principles 
of autocracy, was refused entry into Russia. 

Needless to say, education, and the freedom of 
the Press and literature generally, suffered. The 
number of University students was decreased, 
and military schools multiplied. In fact, Nicholas 
took upon himself to champion Autocracy against 
Democracy and Freedom, and did it well. 

As regards the peasantry, Nicholas instituted 
but one reform of a progressive nature, viz. that 
in which was ordained that the procedure of 
the Village Assemblies should be carried on by 
ballot; but amongst the muzhiks themselves the 



HISTORY 185 

idea never found favour. In reality, their position 
became steadily worse. Ukases, which had been 
promulgated by his predecessors, making con- 
ditions of contract between nobles and proprietors 
and their serfs compulsory, so that there should 
be generated a system of mutual obligation, were 
made null and void. 

Nicholas I., with his colossal stature, his 
imposing exterior, his pride, his iron will, his 
power of work, his taste for the minute details of 
Governmental administration, his passion for all 
things military — always girt in uniform, always 
a martinet, always a ruler — was the type par 
excellence of an Autocrat, and could not bear the 
idea of yielding one iota to the so-called rights 
of the people. Thus it can be understood that 
Serfdom, which had become part and parcel of 
the system of Autocracy — its actual basis — its 
bedrock — remained, notwithstanding the beneficent 
and noble ideas which Nicholas possessed, as 
firmly planted as, and even firmer than, it had 
been in the days of Catherine II. 

The concluding events of the reign of Nicholas, 
viz. the disasters in the East — where not only 
had Turkey flouted the might of Russia, but the 



i86 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

armies of England and France had humiliated 
the Russian Eagle at Alma and Sebastopol — 
brought a terrible awakening throughout the 
Empire. All had expected great things for 
Russia, from the realisation of the vast military 
schemes of Nicholas. More, people cherished 
hopes of the conquest of Constantinople, the 
overthrow of Eastern domination by the might 
of Russia's arms, the deliverance of the Holy 
City, and, indeed, many other fantasies of the 
brain ; but each and all of these were destined to 
be shattered into a thousand fragments, with the 
result that the people awoke suddenly to the real 
truth of the situation, and notwithstanding the 
laws calculated to paralyse all effort, and not- 
withstanding the rigorous police system obtain- 
ing, made their voices heard in one gigantic 
burst of indignation from end to end of Russia. 
Rivers of revolutionary pamphlets issued from 
the Press, and were distributed throughout the 
country, and the eye of the autocratic Nicholas 
was compelled to read such documents as the 
following in the closing years of his reign. I 
quote from an anonymous document distributed 
broadcast in 1855 : 



HISTORY 187 

" Awake, O Russia ! Devoured by enemies from 
without, ruined by slavery, shamefully oppressed 
by the stupidity of the Tchinorniks (Bureaucratic 
officials) and spies, awake from thy long sleep of 
ignorance and apathy ! We have been for too 
long held in bondage by the successors of the 
Tartar Khans {sic). Arise ; present thyself before 
the throne of the despot, and demand of him a 
reckoning for the national humiliation. Tell him 
boldly that his throne is not the altar of God, and 
that God has not condemned us to be eternally 
slaves. Russia, O Tzar, confided the supreme 
power in you, and you were as a God on earth ! 
What then have you done? Blinded by passion 
and ignorance, you have sought power alone — you 
have forgotten Russia. You have passed your life 
reviewing troops, planning fresh uniforms, and sign- 
ing the legislative projects of ignorant charlatans. 
You have created that despicable body of men — 
the censors of the Press — in order that you might 
sleep in peace ; in order that you might not hear 
the murmur of your people ; in order that you 
might not hear the voice of Truth. Truth you 
have buried ; you have rolled a great stone against 
the door of her sepulchre ; you have placed a strong 
guard over her tomb, and in your inmost heart 
have you said, * For her there is no resurrection.' 
Advance, Tzar, to the tribunal of God and History. 
You have without mercy trodden Truth under foot ; 
you have refused liberty, all men being the slaves 
of your passion. By your pride and obstinacy 



i88 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

you have humiliated Russia ; you have armed 
the world against her. Humiliate yourself before 
your brethren ! Bend thy proud self in repent- 
ance ! Implore pardon, demand advice, throw 
thyself into the arms of the people. There is no 
other safety for thee ! " 

Did Nicholas follow this advice ? 

No ! His answer was, " My successor can do 
what he pleases; I cannot change." And he did 
not. Like a rock, firmly fixed and resisting 
the terrible ocean waves, he stood unaffected, 
unvanquished, by the protestations, the abuse, 
the unanimous wishes of his people, and, dying 
on the 9th of February 1855, caused with his 
last breath these words to be despatched to the 
furthest limits of Russia over whom he had 
reigned an Autocrat : " The Emperor is dead ! " 

Alexander II. entered on the duties of king- 
ship, and with his advent on the Russian stage 
rose the hopes of the people; and this time 
not in vain. He immediately took steps in the 
direction of the Emancipation of the Serfs, and, 
as stated in the previous chapter, the blow fell 
in March 1856, when in his speech to the 
Moscow noblesse^ the Emperor declared his 
intention of "abolishing Serfdom from above 



HISTORY 189 

rather than awaiting the time when it will begin 
to abolish itself from below." 

On 19th February 1861 the Emperor signed 
the Decree by which over 40,000,000 serfs were 
liberated. It was decreed : 

"That (l.) The serfs should at once receive the 
civil rights of the free rural classes, and that the 
authority of the proprietor should be replaced by 
Communal Self-Government. 

" (2.) That the rural Communes should, as far as 
possible, retain the land they actually held, and 
should in return pay to the proprietors certain 
yearly dues in money or labour. 

" (3.) That the Government should, by means of 
credit, assist the Communes to redeem these dues, 
or, in other words, purchase the land ceded in 
usufruct." 

Put in business language : the dues were 
capitalised at six per cent., and the Government 
paid to the proprietors at once four-fifths of 
the whole sum. The peasants were to pay to 
the proprietors the remaining one-fifth either at 
once or in instalments, and to the Government 
six per cent, for forty - nine years on the sum 
advanced. 

The result of this reform was curious. The 



190 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

peasantry were universally disappointed. For 
they argued that, according to tradition, the 
Communal land already belonged to them, and 
the proprietor merely had authority over them, 
that authority having been given by the Tzar. 
Now therefore that the proprietors had, so to 
speak, been removed, they said that the land 
should belong to the Communes — without any 
further payfnent. This, then, became a burning 
village problem, and many believed that the real 
Ukase had been suppressed by the Bureaucracy. 
It was rumoured that the Tzar was sitting 
on a golden throne in the Crimea distributing 
land, and many thousands flocked towards that 
visionary Utopia until stopped by the military. 
To this very day the idea is rife amongst the 
muzhiks that deception was practised ; and there 
are those living who have recounted to me with 
frenzied eloquence how "the good Tzar's wishes 
were not carried out," and how their fathers at 
that period strove in vain to make it known to 
the Little Father how he was being deceived. 

What was the effect of the Emancipation on 
proprietor and peasant respectively? Narrowed 
down to plain facts, the results were these: In 



HISTORY 191 

the Northern Zone of Russia, where the soil is 
poor and the most valuable asset to the proprietor 
was the serf, the deprivation of his free labour 
spelt ruin. As a consequence, to-day we see that 
the proprietors have given up farming, and the 
land is let to the peasantry. 

In the northern part of the Southern Zone the 
system of farming on Western methods is 
gradually creeping in, and as a whole the 
proprietors are better off than before the 
Emancipation, and the soil is good. In the 
southern section of the Southern Zone the 
condition of the proprietors is a good deal 
worse, for at the Emancipation there were fewer 
peasants, and many less than were required. 
Hence, when the proprietors lost their serfs, and 
part of their land too, the compensation was not 
in any way proportioned to the loss. 

Now as to the peasant, what was expected? 
That the whole status of the class, morally, 
agriculturally, socially would be changed ; that 
he would work for himself as he had never 
worked for others ; that he would prosper, buy 
land, become a small landed proprietor, and that 
Russia's wastes would be reclaimed — in a word 



192 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

that he would become a changed man, and Russia 
in consequence a changed country. 

Has this happened ? No. Why ? Because, first 
and foremost, the peasant was utterly devoid of 
education. When a serf he had no responsibilities ; 
when bad agricultural years came, they did not 
affect him. When his izba was burned, when 
his tools or his horses were stolen, it did not 
affect him. They always had their master to 
fall back upon, and their cattle fed on his land. 

With the Emancipation came the stoppage of 
all this, and every untoward condition directly 
affected the peasant himself, and he was not 
mentally advanced enough either to become a 
small landowner or to grasp the new situation. 
He could not manage his affairs, and he could 
not understand why he should pay taxes. He 
got into a poverty-stricken condition, and found, 
as he finds to-day, that an advance of food or 
money in bad times — advances which before were 
gifts — are now but bonds which, in the event of 
his inability to repay, hold him to the proprietors 
year after year. He then becomes deeper and 
deeper in the proprietor's debt, and the debt of 
others to whom he goes for temporary assistance. 



HISTORY 193 

A further fact is that the redemption dues 
were in many parts in excess of the actual rent, 
and these the peasants for many reasons found 
themselves absolutely powerless to pay. 

In conclusion to this historical chapter, I wish 
to say a few words regarding that ancient 
institution — the Village Commune. 

First, in order that the minds of my readers 
may not be filled with false ideas, let me say 
that to-day officially — that is, by Imperial Ukase 
— the Commune has ceased to exist as an 
institution ordained by the autocratic will. I 
give the substance of that Ukase, and at the 
same time shall follow it up with a brief account 
of the Commune as it has existed for centuries 
and as actually — notwithstanding the Imperial 
Ukase and many previous Imperial Ukases tend- 
ing in the same direction — it exists to-day over 
the greater part of Russia, and is pretty certain 
to exist for a good long while to come, till the 
Government decide to give education to the 
peasants. 

The Ukase reads thus (\%th October 1906): 

"All peasants are equal before the law." 

N 



194 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

(This is significant as to what was their state 
previously.) 

"The peasants are freed from the bondage 
entailed by the Communal System and all its 
attendant evils. The Village Commune will no 
more be taxed as a whole for the Government 
and Zemstvo taxes. Peasants may now reside 
where they will, and without Communal consent, 
and join another Commune. 

" The peasants are at liberty to retain the Com- 
munal System as a system." 

Thus the Imperial Decree, and it is ordained 
to take place in January of the current year ; but 
so far one has been unable to detect any move- 
ment amongst the Bureaucratic officials in the 
country, or amongst the peasants themselves, 
towards carrying out the terms of that Ukase ; 
and indeed it is possible that it will meet the 
same fate as so many other Ukases. The Tzar 
issues them ; the Government distributes copies 
to the Bureaucratic regime^ and in the pigeon-holes 
of the Bureaucratic regime they remain. The 
peasant hears nothing of them, but reports 
magnificently complete, and beautifully stamped 
with many a rouble stamp, are presented for the 



HISTORY 195 

Government consumption, which Government, 
having duly swallowed them, presents them to 
the Tzar for his gracious signature, and another 
Ukase has seen its execution. 

Hence my readers will not be surprised if I 
proceed to give a few interesting details of that 
Russian village system, which a Russian Bureaucrat 
would assuredly inform one from this time forth 
does not exist, but which in fact does exist, 
and will take a very long time dying. 

Besides this, it is absolutely necessary for the 
understanding of the Russian peasant problem 
to know a few elementary facts regarding the 
Communal system, and these facts I now proceed 
to give. 

The Commune means a commonality of interest 
amongst the inhabitants. The Russian peasant 
family has a head ; the heads of families form 
the Commune ; and from the Commune is elected 
every year or three years a Starosta or chief 
Several Communes, represented by the Starosta 
of each, go to form the District Volost. Each 
peasant has his izba on the village land, and this 
is his permanently. The arable land, part of which 
he must work, is not his actually ; it belongs 



196 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

to the Commune. The arable land is divided 
into three parts to suit the principle of triennial 
rotation of crops, so that that which is used for 
winter grain this year is used for summer grain 
the next, and the third year lies fallow. Each 
family possesses in each of the two fields under 
cultivation so many strips, according to the rich- 
ness of the soil and the working capacity of 
the family. Thus the fields are divided up into 
innumerable long narrow strips parallel with one 
another, and these difficult proportional distribu- 
tions are done by the peasants themselves with 
measuring-sticks. 

Each family must work according to the rules 
of the Commune. Ploughing, reaping, sowing, 
harrowing — work of any sort — must be done at 
the time ordained by the Commune, neither before 
nor after. Every family is responsible for every 
member of that family. If there is a drunkard 
and ne'er-do- Weel in the family, the onus of the 
non-fulfilment of his duties falls on the family. 
Similarly, if a family is lazily inclined, that family 
has a very bad time of it, for if it does not do 
its share of the Communal work, till its share 
of the Communal land, and pay its share of the 




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HISTORY 197 

Communal taxes, which the Commune must pay 
to the Government, then the Commune, i.e, the 
village as a whole, is held responsible by Govern- 
ment. 

A peasant may not leave his village for other 
regions without obtaining leave from the Com- 
mune, and, having gone, he is required to pay his 
taxes when away, and may be recalled at the will 
of the Commune. At varying intervals there are 
Communal distributions of land, at which periods 
all the land is freshly parcelled out according to 
the increased or decreased capabilities of the 
families, and in order to provide land for those 
new families that have arisen in the interval. 
The intervals of distribution vary immensely, from 
yearly distributions to even twenty yearly dis- 
tributions. 

Again, the Government Census list enumerates 
Communal " Souls," and from the time of one 
census to that of the next, the village Commune 
must pay taxes for that number of " souls " found 
to be existent at the last census. So that fre- 
quently it will be found, especially in these times, 
when in certain parts of Russia the inhabitants 
are dying like flies from famine, that a village 



198 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

is paying taxes for some thirty, forty, fifty souls 
that were long since dead. Gogol's wonderful 
novel. Dead Souls, is founded on this anomaly. 

This is the system that has existed in Russia 
up to 1907, and is likely, as I have said, to go 
on existing till the peasant becomes a thinking 
and intelligent being, endowed with a modicum 
of education. 

Was it, and is it, suited to Russia's needs? 
There are those who claim that it is the only 
system that will suffice to prevent the formation 
of a dangerous proletariat — hence the efforts of 
the Bureaucrats and Reactionaries to retain the 
system, and keep rumours of Imperial Ukases and 
all the " gracious reforms according to the Imperial 
will of us Nicholas " from the peasants' ears. 

Their argument is, that the Commune is essenti- 
ally competent to retain the peasantry on the 
land ; that by the Commune more than a half 
of the cultivable land in Russia is reserved for 
them ; and that, when born, the peasant acquires 
a right to the land. 

This is all very well if Russia is to remain 
exclusively agricultural, for emigration could 
take the place of redistribution. However, the 



HISTORY 199 

vital fact remains — there is no land tenure such 
as we understand it in England ; and although 
now by Ukase the Tzar has decreed that the 
Commune does not officially exist, yet a 
clause, as seen above, states that every village 
7nay do as it thinks fit. Well, that means that 
the decision as to the existence or not of the 
antiquated system will rest with the majority 
of the peasants of the villages when they come 
to discuss it at all ; and seeing that the 
majority are ignorant, it is pretty certain that 
the system will remain in force, and that the 
more intelligent amongst the Russian peasants 
will continue to find themselves tied hand and 
foot by it. 

Is Russia to remain exclusively agricultural? 
Decidedly no. Russia has the ambition to 
become a great commercial country. 

What, then, is one of the great drawbacks? 

The Village Commune is the answer, for there 
now exists — owing to that very system, with its 
bad method of distribution of land, its direct 
action against Western methods of agriculture, 
etc. — a condition of affairs which in itself 
produces a large proletariat — a large body of 



200 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

men who, not having sufficient work in the 
villages, spend part of the year in the towns, 
or " trek " for work to distant parts. Then they 
can neither become good agriculturists nor good 
artisans. 

People may say that this forbids the formation 
of a town proletariat, for the men have the 
village to go back to. Yes ; but the village 
population continues to grow, and the time has 
arrived when, the more workers there are, the 
worse it is for the village strangled by the 
Communal system. 

What makes matters doubly worse is the 
unequalled laziness of the peasant himself. I 
have seen the peasantry over the greater part 
of Europe, and have no hesitation in saying 
that the equal in sloth of the Russian peasant 
does not exist amongst that class. He is behind 
the times in mind and activity, and the greater 
part of the vast class have no wish to improve 
their own condition. 

Amongst the reasons for this lack of energy, 
this apathy towards progress and cultivation, 
must be put first his enforced serfage of the 
past, which has left him to-day utterly unabie 



HISTORY 201 

to understand what is meant by education, 
progress, or culture. 

Be this as it may, the fact remains that the 
present Government, which seems anxious to 
do something for our friend, has its work made 
infinitely more difficult owing to the stupidity 
of the class for which it is called upon to 
legislate. To assert that the peasantry, as a 
class, are fit to have suffrage is sheer nonsense, 
and is equivalent to saying that children should 
have the right to vote and take part in electoral 
representation. 

In conclusion of this chapter, let me give a 
few simple statistics relating to the peasant 
problem. 

In i860, the year previous to the Emancipa- 
tion, distributed over fifty governments, were as 
follows : 

Men. Possessing Dessiatives 

Dessiativcs.^ =per Man. 

State Peasants . 10,000,000 74,000,000 7 

Appanage Peasants 8,700,000 4,300,000 5 

Landlords' Peasants 11,907,000 35,700,000 3 

Instead of giving the peasants an increase on 
three dessiatives, many proprietors gave them 
even less, so that the peasant found himself with 
more time to work for himself but less land. 
^ A dessiative=2| acres, 



202 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Left to the State at the Emancipation were — 
151,000,000 dessiatives of cultivatable land; 
left to the Appanages at the Emancipation were 
7,500,000 dessiatives of cultivatable land; and 
left to the proprietors at the Emancipation 
were 100,000,000 dessiatives of cultivatable land. 

From the first it was seen that the system by 
which the peasants were to pay the State — at 
6 per cent, interest over forty-nine years — the 
money it had advanced to the proprietors, would 
not work. The peasantry every year found 
difficulty in paying, and the unwise course was 
taken of forcing the payment from them by 
means of an increased Police system, and it 
was not until 1905 that the Tzar abolished the 
obligation arranged in 1861. 

In 1 88 1 thousands of peasants being unable 
to pay, Government reduced land taxation, and 
measures were taken to facilitate emigration, and 
to aid the peasantry to buy land ; and for this 
purpose the Peasants' Bank was formed in 1883. 
The need of more land was so great that even 
before 1880 the peasantry had purchased about 
1,889,800 acres without aid, and up to the begin- 
ning of 1900 the Land Bank had advanced 



HISTORY 203 

;£'20,273,842, whilst land actually bought by the 
peasants amounted to 11,656,620 acres. 

Hardly had the Government agreed to the 
Emigration Scheme, when, through M. de Plehve, 
it was cancelled. Nevertheless, in 1822, when 
emigration was stopped, 9000 departed for 
Siberia; from 1890- 1900, 185,000; and between 
1901 and 1903, 86,000 left the soil of European 
Russia. The need of land was becoming greater 
and greater, and the peasant population was 
increasing incredibly. 

Every man soul had, on an average, in 1861, 
4*8 dessiatives; in 1880, 3*5 dessiatives ; and in 
1900, 2'5 dessiatives. 

In 1901 each peasant had about four-fifths of 
the amount of land he was capable of cultivating. 
The crops yielded 16 per cent, less than the 
growth necessary for peasant needs, and 41 per 
cent, less than that for the needs of the cattle. 
Further, it is a melancholy fact that though the 
landlords had double the amount of land capable 
of cultivation by the peasants, half of it remained 
fallow. 

To-day, only 8*9 of the peasantry can spare 
any of their agricultural produce for sale, and 



204 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

707 per cent, cannot raise sufficient produce for 
subsistence. 

But the statement that if all the proprietors* 
land were given to the peasantry it even then 
would not suffice, is only true because it is said 
in connection with the Russian peasant. I would 
go further, and say, if double the amount of land 
owned by the proprietors was given to the 
peasants, the latter would, after a given period 
of years, find themselves in the same state of 
beggary as to-day, and we should see them still 
clamouring for land, simply because they do not 
know how to cultivate, and are so ignorant and 
uneducated that they do not wish to learn to 
farm in any other way than that which has been 
handed down to them by their forefathers. It is 
not the lack of land so much as this ignorance, 
combined with his natural laziness and addiction 
to drink, which has brought him to the pass he 
is in to-day. 

The question of who is to blame for this 
ignorance I shall discuss in the next chapter. 
Meanwhile, the rent of land is increasing. During 
the last thirty years rents have quadrupled and 
quintupled in Central and South Russia, and in 
East and West have doubled and trebled. 



HISTORY 205 

In 1885 the arrears in taxes were 5o,cxx),ooo 
roubles; in 1896 they were i42,5CX),ooo roubles. 
The live stock is falling off. There is a diminu- 
tion of pasture land by increased cultivation of 
grain ; consequently peasants have insufficient 
horses for farming operations, and insufficient 
manure, although it must be said that in many 
parts of Russia even now the manure is burnt 
for fuel by the ignorant peasants. Of course, in 
the present lamentable, famine-stricken condition 
of the country, anything — manure included — that 
can be got hold of is burned, to bring warmth 
to their meagrely-covered bones ; and the needs 
of the land for the coming year are entirely 
forgotten in the struggle to relieve the bodily 
pangs of the moment. 

Let us pass from history and statistics to an 
investigation of the means that have been taken 
by the Government in the past, and the means 
that are being taken to-day, on behalf of the 
peasants, and I will endeavour to show my 
readers that the main causes of the woeful 
condition of the Russian peasants at this hour 
are the Church and Bureaucracy. 



CHAPTER III 

RUSSIA'S POISON — BUREAUCRACY AND CHURCH 

" Bureaucracy " is the most hated and despised 
word in the Russian language, except by the 
Russian Bureaucratic official or Tchinovnik him- 
self, who would print the word in gold, and hang 
it up, surrounded by precious stones, in all the 
churches of the Empire. 

Cause and effect ! We have seen that the 
Mongol invasion left its mark on Russia, and 
that centuries of Serfdom degraded her beyond 
the power of description, till 1861 saw the aboli- 
tion of the latter execrable system. Yet to-day 
Russia groans under oppression, and is not one 
whit in a better condition than forty-six years 
ago ; nay, she is, taking all things into considera- 
tion, in a far worse position than she was then. 
Here we have the effect ! 

What is the cause, what is the canker, that 

is gnawing at Russia's heart, and sucking her 

very life-blood at this hour? 
206 



RUSSIA'S POISON 207 

The answer can be given in one word — 
" Bureaucracy." 

Happy the child of past centuries, who was 
not born a peasant in a Russian village, for he 
was born into a bondage for which it would 
be hard to find a parallel. To-day, with the 
exception that the conditions of bondage as 
regards the body proper and enforced labour 
are legally impossible, and actually much less 
marked, the statement holds good. The status 
to which the Russian peasant is born the un- 
fortunate heir has changed but little since the 
days of Ivan the Terrible. Indeed, in naming 
that period as a parallel, one criticises mildly the 
conditions obtaining to-day amongst the peasant 
masses. 

In those days he was at least born a free 
man ; he could, at any rate, do as he pleased ; 
and if opportunities for learning came within 
his reach he was permitted to make use of 
them. To-day he is also, according to law and 
countless Ukases emanating from the Imperial 
Chancellory and signed by the autocratic hand, 
born a free man. But where else in any country 
of the world that arrogates to itself the right 



1 



208 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

to be considered civilised is it found that the lives 
of the children begin under such conditions as 
obtained to-day in the Russian zjsba ? The phrase 
so commonly used amongst Western people, " first 
saw the light," is not applicable to the birth of 
the mus/ii'k, for light there zs not in the foul, 
pestilential, vapour - laden den into which the 
unfortunate little creature is launched ; and indeed, 
if he happens to be born in the depth of the 
pitiless winter, it is long before he sees God's 
light, and breathes anything approaching to pure 
air. And into what is he born? Nothing less 
than a condition infinitely worse, from a moral 
point of view, than the condition of recognised 
Serfdom which was formerly his lot. 

It is no use disguising the fact — it is no use 
arguing that it is the peasant's fault that he 
is very little higher in the scale than our pre- 
historic ancestors ; it is no use for these Russians, 
responsible for their country's welfare and their 
moral progress and enlightenment, to sit still 
with an air of injured innocence and smug 
hypocrisy, and say, " What can we do with such 
canaille ? " 

The task is theirs to improve this condition 



RUSSIA'S POISON 209 

of affairs, to search indefatigably for the root 
of the evil — which, alas ! is not far to seek, 
for it lies on the surface plain to all — and to 
eradicate it ruthlessly, whatever the cost. Why 
are there "such canaille''' existent to-day, in the 
year of our Lord 1907, forty-six years after the 
Emancipation ? Why has the peasant degenerated 
instead of progressed since that much vaunted 
period? Why can no honest man deny the fact 
that the peasant is treated as a dog, is more a 
serf than ever he was, and is denied all oppor- 
tunities of becoming an enlightened being? 

Will the official Russian for ever supply a 
deceived Europe with the glib assertion that the 
Tartar invasion and Serfdom are to blame, and 
will Europe and the civilised world for ever 
swallow the delicately gilded pill ? Will it never 
search for itself, without the aid of Russian 
officialism, for the true cause of Russia's deplor- 
able condition ? And when it does, what will it 
unanimously decide is the cause of this slow- 
gnawing canker which eats at the heart of 
Russia, and retains her entangled in the mire 
of degeneracy and reaction ? Will England and 

other nations continue to supply huge loans on 

o 



210 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

the supposition that they are bolstering up the 
Russian State, and relieving the real Russian 
people ? Will the answer to these questions never 
be satisfactorily supplied to a deceived world? 
Will hoodwinked foreigners of all other nation- 
alities never understand that one thing alone is 
to-day the cause of Russia's trouble? that one 
answer alone, one word^ is needed to all these 
questions ? — and that word is, " Bureaucracy." 

Loans, memorials, sympathy in the past, have 
done nothing but bolster up Bureaucracy to the 
detriment of the Russian Nation, to the detriment 
of the Russian People, to the degradation of 
Russia as a whole. 

Till Russia has been swept of the last vestiges 
of Bureaucracy, it will remain stagnant as a 
State, its policy a party one born of the self- 
seeking motives of its corrupt officialism, incapable 
of being trusted, respected, or carrying real weight 
amongst the Powers of the world, incapable of 
being accepted as the true expression of the 
feeling of the true, great Russian people. All 
cankers gnawing at the vitals of unfortunate 
Russia are as nought in comparison with it; 
indeed, most cankers are its offspring. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 211 

The crimes of politicals of all classes, the 
bombs of revolutionaries of all creeds, all acts 
anti-Governmental or against Tzardom — the low 
morale to be found permeating all grades of the 
Russian Administration, can be proved without 
any difficulty to be more or less the direct out- 
come of that most rotten of all rotten systems 
holding sway on the surface of the earth to-day 
— the Bureaucratic System. Bureaucracy is 
reaction ; breeds vice and corruption, strangles 
honesty, progress, reform, and every effort to 
engender a pure, straightforward, patriotic national 
life ; its policy centralisation ; its gods formality, 
documents, pens and ink ; its deeds, statistics ; 
its creed ignorance. 

Then before proceeding to give the actual 
effects of this system throughout Russia, and 
more especially in reference to the Russian 
peasant, let us glance at its construction, and 
endeavour to discover how such an iniquitous 
organisation could have been saddled on the 
back of a great white race — and a European race 
— numbering over i40,ooo,ocx) of people. Irony 
indeed that Peter the Great, that creator of all 
reforms for the good of his country, that 



212 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

eminently honest and straightforward well-wisher 
for the progress of Russia and her people, should 
be destined to be labelled as the introducer of 
a system which was to prove the chief obstruction 
to her advancement in the future, and the main 
cause of all those overwhelming afflictions which 
beset her to-day. Peter, finding the Empire dis- 
jointed and lacking combination of the classes, 
looked about for material to form such an organ- 
isation which should unite Russia, and supply her 
with a definite system, the force and discipline of 
which should be felt from the highest downwards. 

Unfortunately for Russia, Germany supplied 
Peter with the required idea, and Peter, taking 
his stand, generally speaking, on the conditions 
holding in that country, set to work to level all 
distinctions, and class his people in grades, 
according to official standing. The nobility went 
with a crash to the ground (I refer to the real 
hereditary nobility), never to rise again to real 
importance to this very hour. 

Nobles and proprietors migrated from their 
estates, and flocked to Petersburg and Moscow, 
realising that Governmental service from that 
time meant all, and hereditary nobility nothing. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 213 

All girt up their loins and ran in feverish haste 
to bask in the light of Tchin. All had titles 
high sounding in proportion to the grades, of 
which there were fourteen (each of the fourteen 
being divided up into a multitude of smaller 
grades), so that even the boy who swept the 
Governmental office might have titular rank, 
and a uniform which should enable him to look 
down upon those ununiformed individuals — 
Tchinless beings — the people. 

To show what a sweeping change was effected, 
and how real nobility became a thing of the 
past, it is only necessary to say that from the 
time of Peter the Great to the reign of 
Alexander I., every officer of the Army of a 
certain rank, and every employee of equivalent 
rank in the Governmental service, belonged by 
right to the hereditary nobility. Tchin reigned ; 
none escaped it. To have influence, power, and 
be respected, Tchin was the one and only 
necessity ; to be without Tchin, it were as well 
one had never been born. A humble civil 
functionary, of medium ambition and decidedly 
less capability, found himself suddenly saddled 
with Tchin and a uniform, which bestowed on 



214 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

him the high-sounding title of " Councillor," and 
besides made him the equal of some military 
officer, and competent to command a battalion, 
while a portly dignitary of the Church would 
wake up to find himself a General of Brigade 
or its equivalent. 

All of any standing became either councillors 
or acting councillors, acting privy councillors, 
councillors of State, acting councillors of State, 
acting privy councillors of State, assessors, private 
assessors, etc., etc., ad infinitum. Russia became 
a well, in which all real title to nobility, all real 
merit, was sunk, and from which was dragged 
up myriads of meaningless and absurd designa- 
tions which, far from ennobling them or embuing 
them with honest ambition, levelled them to the 
depths of mediocrity, and impregnated them 
with but one insatiate desire to attain yet higher 
in the dazzling ranks of Tchin. 

All people of real worth, if they were able, 
forsook the Governmental Service, and did their 
best to dissociate themselves from the hungry 
masses striving to be fed with a rank so easy 
of attainment ; and the same may be said to-day. 
Real nobility, the nobility born of character and 



RUSSIA'S POISON 215 

worth, with but rare exceptions, is not to be 
found within the Bureaucratic ranks. 

Gogol, the Voltaire of Russian authors, has only 
too faithfully represented the class of people who 
fill the Administrative offices to-day from top to 
bottom of this vast Empire ; but not even his 
keen satire has adequately expressed the incredible 
rottenness of the system, and the inconceivable 
incompetence and corruption of the great majority 
of Administrative officials. The possession of 
intellect, broad education, and culture actually 
bars one from the ranks of the Governmental 
Service. Such a person, especially if endowed 
with honesty and integrity of purpose, is kept 
from the service by all the influence of the 
higher Bureaucratic regime^ for fear that by him 
the crass inadequacy of the whole organisation 
should be discovered, and that through him its 
innate corruption, peculation, and vice should be 
laid bare to the world in all its hideous reality. 

The holder of a University degree need not 
apply for employment in this unique Government 
Service, for a University degree spells knowledge 
and a desire for progress, qualities which are 
unspeakably obnoxious to the Russian Bureaucrat. 



2i6 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Indeed, to-day it may be said with absolute truth 
that a student at the University is looked upon, 
first and foremost, as a revolutionary, and danger- 
ous to the Powers that be. And so he is ; and 
although his opinions lead him to act just now 
with rather thoughtless impetuosity, and in many 
respects with misdirected zeal, yet, on the whole, 
the Russian student's point of view is easily to 
be understood by those who will only take the 
trouble to search out the truth for themselves, 
for the student is a revolutionary in his inmost 
heart against all the vices of the Bureaucracy, 
and is dangerous to them alone. 

Seeing that Bureaucracy is what it is, I make 
bold to forecast that the Russia of the future will 
afford the student class a place of honour in the 
nation's roll of patriots, and point them out to 
their successors as men who, filled with a con- 
viction of their duties to their country, endeavoured 
nobly to carry them out. 

Not only are they debarred from their country's 
service, but all University men known to hold 
political views contrary to those of the Bureau- 
cracy need only apply for posts to be assured 
of being detained on suspicion, and, when a con- 



RUSSIA'S POISON 217 

venient opportunity occurs, being arrested and 
either sent to gaol in European Russia, or exiled 
to Siberia. 

What wonder then that Russia is in the mire 
to-day — a bankrupt, financially, politically, socially, 
— when the service to which intelligence and 
education is thus denied entry is the Russian 
Public Service? 

It is a fact that the majority of these function- 
aries holding high rank in the provinces of Russia 
are equipped with the most insufficient education 
and culture to enable them adequately to perform 
their duties, and in ninety-nine cases out of a 
hundred, they are themselves sons of blind re- 
actionaries, devotees to the system, bred and 
brought up in the Bureaucratic cradle. 

As for the masses of Officialdom represented 
by the lower ranks of the service, spread like 
a gigantic network throughout the length and 
breadth of Russia, they are composed of the very 
essence of ignorance, and eighty per cent, of them 
are devoid of all pretensions to education, intellect, 
culture, or natural refinement. 

In 1880 a careful research was made into the 
capabilities of functionaries of all grades employed 



2i8 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

by Government in the public service. The results, 
in black and white, are as interesting as they are 
astounding. Of any given hundred, only two had 
had a superior education ; five to six had finished 
their education in secondary schools ; ten to twelve 
had had an infinitesimal smattering of knowledge 
doled out to them in primary schools ; whilst 
eighty per cent, had never been to school^ and 
had never known the nature of a competitive 
examination ! 

These are the types of men who to-day fill 
the minor Governmental posts — it is needless to 
add, with the utmost lack of ability, and to the 
utmost detriment to the public service. 

What wonder then that Russia is floundering 
helplessly in the quicksands of retrogression, and 
that the Russian people are gasping for even the 
suspicion of a breath of an honest atmosphere 
in all matters social or otherwise, and that there 
is bred to such an extent that may prove in- 
eradicable a feeling of distrust in connection with 
things Governmental, or in anything that has 
even the remotest connection with the Govern- 
ment? What wonder if the Russian people are 
struggling to free themselves from the Bureau- 



RUSSIA'S POISON 219 

cratic serpent which is strangling them and their 
country in its tenacious coils ? 

Mr Lecky, the late historian and politician, said : 
"Alexander III. reigned over an administration 
which is amongst the most despotic, and probably 
without exception the most corrupt and the most 
cruel, in Europe." 

Alexander III., be it remembered, was the father 
of the present ruler, Nicholas II.; and what Mr 
Lecky said during his reign is even truer when 
said of the condition of affairs which holds good 
at this hour ; and it will be true until a Govern- 
ment arises, composed of men embued both with 
honest ideals, and with the requisite strength of 
character to carry them out, and advise their 
Sovereign accordingly. 

I do not wish to say anything unjust of the 
Ministry presided over by M. Stolypin. He has 
yet to be tried — or, rather, one would say, his 
trial is now on; and although his methods up to 
date seem curiously unsuitable for the twentieth 
century, and he seems drifting into the old errors 
and the old ideas of his predecessors, whose chief 
axiom was that the people have no rights in an 
autocratic Government, yet we must wait a little 



220 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

while longer, and give him an opportunity to 
develop any gigantic schemes that he may, for 
all we know, have evolved for the benefit of his 
country. 

So far there has been no sign, and the clouds 
are gathering on the horizon ; the Duma may 
open a new vista for us from which to draw 
deductions. There must come a time when the 
millions composed of the masses and Russia's 
soldiery will, willy nilly, be in possession of that 
modicum of education that will enable them to 
see at a glance that their true interests are with 
the intellectuals amongst the Russian people, and, 
as a consequence, do that which should have 
been done years ago — exterminate the Bureau- 
cratic system, root and branch. d 

What is the basis of the system ? Centralisation. 

Mr Geoffrey Drage (I am quoting from memory) 
says : " If it is true that Centralisation made Russia, 
it is equally true that Decentralisation is the only 
thing calculated to permit her to live." And this 
statement is true through and through. Every 
branch of the Governmental system throughout 
Russia is swamped, ruined, and made useless by 
the system of Centralisation, a system which 



RUSSIA'S POISON 221 

might be very well designated as that which 
has as its fundamental principle the shifting of 
responsibility on to other people's shoulders. 

Let us now look at the state to which Russia 
has been brought by this system. Firstly, what 
action or inaction has prepared the way for the 
hopeless chaos to be found in the official life of 
the country to-day ? 

In 1864 the Zemstvos were established — 
institutions similar in aspirations to our English 
County Councils, but differing in that they 
had vastly wider powers (on paper), and per- 
formed infinitesimally lesser deeds owing to the 
restrictions laid by Government on every action 
about to benefit the people, and lead to their 
enlightenment. Hope ran like wild-fire through 
the country, that at last Russia would see roads 
constructed, schools established, villages improved, 
reforms made in agricultural methods amongst 
the peasantry, etc., etc. But, alas ! " hope deferred 
maketh the heart sick," and Russia is very, very 
sick to-day. 

The Government no sooner gave a measure of 
self - government to the people with one hand, 
than it took it away with the other. Every- 



222 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

body said, as they say to-day when news comes 
of some gigantic reform about to be launched, 
" What then are we going to lose this time ? " 
There is no trust left in the people; the inten- 
tions of a Government run on the present lines 
will never more be believed in. " Lies, lies ! " 
say the people, and judging by past experience, 
the people are right in their conjecture. 

The year 1881 brought the assassination of 
Alexander II., and a consequent tide of hopeless 
reaction set in, fostered by M. Pobiedonostzefif, 
Procurator of the Holy Synod, and M. de Plehve, 
then Chief of Police. Liberty of popular action 
found itself still more restricted than of yore, 
and all institutions became more and more taken 
from the hand of the people and turned into 
Bureaucratic machines. The Justices of the Peace, 
a body of honourable men whom the people and 
peasantry had learned to trust and to respect, 
were thrown over, and officials, generally hope- 
lessly ignorant, called Zemski Natchalniki^ were 
appointed to dominate the Zemstvos, while 
higher officials, called Ispravniks, were appointed 
to dominate them^ whilst the Governor of the 
province ruled over both — all being tools of the 



RUSSIA'S POISON 223 

Bureaucratic system. To these officials (mostly 
favourites of the ruling powers, and in nine cases 
out of ten absolutely ignorant of their duties) 
were handed the administrative affairs of the 
provinces. The Zenistvos met as of yore, it is 
true, but their real administrative power was 
less than nil^ and depended entirely on the trio 
of Tchinovniks enumerated above, matters, as a 
fact, being generally left to the Zemski Natchalnik^ 
as the work entailed by local affairs of the towns 
and villages was far too arduous for the other 
two officials to bother their heads about. So that 
to-day we find the Zemski Natchalnik managing 
all local affairs off his own bat, so to speak, and, 
as may be imagined, he does it unconscionably 
badly. 

As a general rule, he does nothing but take 
bribes, which he, no doubt, calls '^ honoraria^ 
It is a very delicate word to designate a catalogue 
of very damnable deeds. Recently the Press has 
been forbidden to publish complaints regarding 
his conduct — a truly Bureaucratic method of 
smothering the truth. " We have no more judges," 
said the peasants; "we have commanding officers." 
The Zemstvos and provincial noblesse fought the 



224 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

situation, and at a great meeting held in Moscow 
in 1902, recommended to the Government as 
follows : 

"(i.) An increase in education on broad lines. 

"(2.) That the Zemstvos shall have larger 
powers, and be more representative. 

"(3.) That peasants be placed on a footing with 
the rest of the nation. 

" (4.) That all impedimenta to free discussions of 
economic questions, either orally or in the Press, 
be removed." 

And very reasonable requests, too, you will 
say, for 140,000,000 to make in the twentieth 
century ! 

Yes, very reasonable and extremely moderate ; 
but what was the result? All were reprimanded 
by the Government : some, who were in Govern- 
ment Service, were dismissed from office, and 
three were exiled to Siberia ! 

Reaction followed reaction, and the advent of 
Nicholas II., whatever may be the beneficent 
intentions of that young ruler, has brought nothing 
but retrogression in its train. At the expense 
of popular liberty and to the advantage of 
Bureaucracy, till to-day we see widespread misery 



RUSSIA'S POISON 225 

throughout Russia — in town and village, house 
and izba. 

And here, prior to the few remaining remarks 
which I have to make regarding the Bureaucratic 
regime^ I wish to take my readers with me to 
these self-same villages and izbas, and show them 
the effects of this lack of reform, this incredible 
shirking of duty, that has been carried on, and 
is being carried on, in almost every town, village, 
and hamlet in Russia. 

At the beginning of the chapter we noticed 
into what surroundings the Russian peasant babe 
is born. Then for months after he has begun 
his life he is deprived of Nature's chief gifts : he 
breathes the dank, stale fumes, the smoke, the 
bacilli-XdA^xi dust, and through his nostrils per- 
meate the nauseous odours born of the conditions 
under which man and beast live in one con- 
glomerate mass, herded together in the almost 
hermetically sealed Russian izba. 

Is the lack of hygiene and sanitation compen- 
sated for by the food supplied to the wretched 
infant ? 

By no manner of means. The food is on a 
par with the rest of the conditions obtaining : 



226 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

small cucumbers, black bread, water as often as 
not stagnant ; and in the short-lived summer and 
autumn green apples are the only regular items 
of diet supplied to the unfortunate child. Milk 
is occasionally to be obtained, but it is the 
exception — at any rate, in many of the provinces 
of Central, South Eastern, and Southern Russia, 
especially Riazan, Orel, Samara, and Tamboff — 
to find anything like even an irregular supply of 
milk obtainable for the infants. 

While travelling through the country last winter, 
time after time I found that either the peasantry 
had no cows, or else the latter were diseased or 
in too wretched and half-starved a condition to 
supply milk worthy of the name. 

Then is nothing done for the newly -born 
children, for their mothers, and sick people 
generally, one might ask? ] 

Yes — nominally. Vast tomes of statistics are 
supplied to Government yearly, showing what 
has been done to give relief, and how the sums 
of money laid aside out of the Revenue for this ^ 
purpose have been expended. 

I am bound to confess that, though I have 
travelled over vast areas of country, and through 



RUSSIA'S POISON 227 

many hundreds of villages, I have never been 
able to make the Government reports, or rather 
the reports made by the provincial Tchinovniks 
to the Government, tally with the impression 
that has been left upon my mind of the con- 
dition of any particular district that might be 
under discussion. 

I have seen reports to the effect that in such 
and such a district there is a certain amount of 
" local scarcity " (an expression the Bureaucracy is 
very fond of), but no approach to real famine. I 
have seen this statement when I myself have 
but just travelled through that country, and been 
a pained witness of the most terrible suffering 
that can fall to the lot of man. I have seen 
reports to the effect that so many thousands of 
roubles have been expended in a certain district, 
and so much food. I have travelled there, and 
discovered that if any food has been distributed, 
it has been in amounts hardly worth mentioning, 
and of absolutely no avail in the relief of the 
starving peasantry. As for money — solid money 
— my experience is, that when one hears of that 
being distributed, one may set it down at once 
as a fairy tale. 



228 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

There are, however, scattered as drops on the 
ocean through the vast regions of Russia, small 
hospitals or BolneetsaSy instituted by the Zemstvos^ 
with the permission of the Government. Here 
one finds a collection of beds, varying in number 
from six to twelve, and the institution is pre- 
sided over by a Zemstvo doctor, aided frequently 
by an assistant, sometimes in the person of a 
Feldshery or old soldier, who has learnt some- 
thing of medicine and surgery in war. But 
these Bolneetsas are few and far between. 

Peasants frequently have to travel twenty to 
thirty miles across a terribly forbidding and almost 
impassable country, and in the periods between 
winter and summer, and vice versd^ when the roads 
are practically non-existent. If the peasants 
should decide to go for the purpose of obtain- 
ing out-door relief at the Bolneetsa, it in many 
cases means a two days' journey there and back 
— for a bottle of medicine ! It has been calculated 
recently that for the peasant population through- 
out Russia there is, on an average, one doctor 
to every 2iO,ooo people I What this means amongst 
a poor and frequently half- starved community 
may be better imagined than described. 




5iberian Peasants. 




Tofacep.228. Kefuge Hut on a desolate floor. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 229 

Again, in these hard times, when cattle are being 
sold for the value of their skins in order to obtain 
food, when manure which should go to the soil 
is being burned as fuel, when izbas are being 
purposely pulled down to provide material for 
burning, when acorns and oak bark are being 
used as substitutes for bread — it is very rare to 
find a peasant family in possession of a horse 
and sleigh which can transport him to the far- 
away Bolneetsa. 

At the same time it must be said that I have 
not found excessive kindness and charity amongst 
themselves a prominent feature in the nature of 
Russia's peasantry. True, they have sympathy 
with one another, and on occasion one has found 
a very deep sympathy existing in families ; but 
speaking generally, there is an apathy, a callous- 
ness, bred of the still existing mediaeval contempt 
of the male for the female. He has only married 
his better half in order to have a capable help- 
meet about him. She has, in his opinion, no other 
functions to perform than the maternal one, and 
he considers he has honoured her enough by 
marrying her without doing anything further. 

Then what right has she to be ill ? It was not 



230 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

part of the bargain. Then how can she expect 
his sympathy, or imagine that he will spend his 
time in driving her in the family sleigh or tarantass 
to the Hospital twenty miles away? No! such 
a thing is not to be thought of 

Again, if the children are ill, so much the worse 
for them — and it is God's will. God has given, 
perhaps He intends to take away. How often 
have I had it remarked to me by these ignorant 
beings, when endeavouring to exercise my medical 
skill amongst them : " Barin (master), the child 
is very bad — too ill too live. God does not intend 
that it shall live ; it would evidently only grow 
up an invalid ; it is not for us to go against His 
will and try to save it." And they don't. Indeed, 
your true muzhik is the Russian prototype of the 
Christian scientist and a decided Fatalist. 
^ Further, times out of number I have heard such 
statements as the following. ^^ Barin ^ the Doctor 
there is a bad man ; he makes money out of his 
Hospital ; he gives nothing but coloured water. 
What is the good of going twenty miles for 
nothing? He only gives us enough for three or 
four days ; we must go many times to be cured." 
And they fear the very idea of being warded in 



RUSSIA'S POISON 231 

these Bolneetsas. The thought of an operation 
of any sort is terrifying to them. Put in a nut- 
shell, the peasant abhors the very name of Zemstvo 
Bolneetsa, 

It must be said at once that the peasants' com- 
plaints are based for the most part on ignorance 
of the real causes of the inability of the doctors 
to treat them properly. Distance, it may be said, 
forbids continuous treatment, and continuous treat- 
ment is frequently necessary. Further, the crass 
stupidity of the muzhik makes it almost impossible 
to treat him as an intelligent patient and sensible 
being. He does not understand cleanliness. I 
have many times given a clean surgical dressing 
to one of the class, and impressed upon him that 
he must keep it clean in the paper that I have 
provided him with. Glance out of the window, 
and one sees him opening the paper, drawing out 
the dressing, and then having thoroughly examined 
it, and perhaps dropped it on the ground, place 
it minus the paper in his dirty sheepskin. 

A peasant's idea of medicine is something that 
smells strong and tastes stronger ; if these two 
attributes are not to be found in your medicine, 
he says to himself: "This medicine is no good; 



232 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

and as for drinking it in teaspoonfuls, why, that is 
sheer nonsense " ; and as often as not he drinks 
the whole bottle at a draught, with the idea that 
the whole is greater than the part, and will pro- 
duce greater effects. 

Drinking the entire contents of the wrong bottle 
is also not an infrequent occurrence, and I have seen 
a muzhik^ to whom I had given a bottle of camphor 
liniment for the purpose of rubbing over his chest, 
and likewise a bottle of tonic for his general health, 
hand round one of these bottles to the occupants 
of his sleigh — his wife, son, and daughter — and 
finally, with uplifted arm, drain the receptacle to 
its uttermost dregs. Dire were the results — for, 
on the whole party returning to me in a doubled- 
up condition, with their hands clasped in sore 
distress over their stomachs, I discovered that the 
camphor liniment had gone by the board down 
their unfortunate throats, and the tonic remained 
untouched ! 

This is no isolated instance. I could name a 
legion of such. I have had patients drink the 
poisonous lead lotion which had been given for their 
ulcered legs — and wittingly too, *' for," said they, 
" I thought that as it did so much good outside, 



RUSSIA'S POISON 233 

it must act as well on the inside." So they 
attacked the obnoxious sore on both sides, front 
and rear, with results which I leave to my medical 
brethren to imagine. 

Once I gave a patient in Central Russia some 
tincture of iodine, with minute instructions to 
paint it round his neck. A few days afterwards 
he came to me in the direst distress. His neck 
was well, but he had a terrible story to tell. Such 
wonders had the iodine worked on his neck, that 
he determined to try the effect on his infant 
child, who had a rather distended abdomen, and 
cried all night. He therefore painted the child 
front and back, leaving not one spot untouched. 
Strange to say, the drastic remedy had not the 
desired effect, but only succeeded in producing 
cries of the most intense agony in the poor 
little mite. 

What was to be done? Evidently he must 
call in the local Feldsher. This being appeared, 
and with a learned face and many long speeches 
declared that I was to blame, but that he could, 
by the exercise of skill which God had vouch- 
safed to him alone, cure the child ; but he 
added that if it was God's will that the child 



234 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

should die, even after he (the Feldsher) had 
expended his mysterious incantations and yet 
more mysterious medicine, then of course that 
was not his affair. So he proceeded to apply 
a large belladonna plaster over the whole area 
covered by the iodine, and gave him a nauseous 
mess internally, which made the child vomit 
throughout the entire night. The Feldsher, called 
in haste, demonstrated to the satisfaction of all 
that it was the effect of the Doctor's medicine 
working off; he had in fact driven my wicked 
concoction out of the child's system. He then 
ordered a diet of herbs and cucumber ! — the 
child was barely two years old, let me remark 
— and with the final sage remark that the child 
might " possibly vomit again," as there might be 
some of my medicine left, he departed — with his 
fee! 

The child died, exhausted with pain, and the 
father seemed absolutely incapable of under- 
standing that it was he who had done wrong in 
the first instance, and unwisely in the second 
in not coming straight to me. 

I took the trouble to go and see that 
Feldsher^ feeling quite willing to teach him a 



RUSSIA'S POISON 235 

little elementary medicine; but on my inform- 
ing him that the child had died, he crossed him- 
self ten times in succession, and with an air of 
conscious pride, born as it were of his superior 
knowledge, said : " Fools ! Fools ! they always 
wait till they are very ill before calling me in. 
God's will ! God's will ! " I left him swathed in 
ignorance, seeing clearly that all my arguments 
would fall like water on a duck's back, and that 
his innate feeling of superior knowledge forbade 
the imbibing of further instruction. 

One more instance, to show my readers what 
obstacles a medical man has to contend against 
in endeavouring to aid these wretched creatures. 
Only two weeks ago I was stopping at a certain 
estate in this, the Western district of Vitebsk 
Government, when a peasant arrived in urgent 
haste and implored me to go at once to see his 
brother, who was sorely ill. 

I went at once, and discovered that the man 
had a slight twist of the intestine, which had 
caused obstruction and great pain. By dint of 
much good luck and the ordinary remedies, I 
succeeded in unravelling the organ, and putting 
the patient at rest. I applied certain remedies 



236 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

by means of an enema, but — and this is the 
point — gave no internal medicine. 

Now if you give no medicine and no ointment 
— Maz, as the peasants say — to rub over the 
part affected, your treatment must of necessity 
be woefully inadequate. 

Then witness the sequel. I journeyed to see 
the man two days after, and found him lying 
in an exhausted state — pallid, haggard, and 
evidently in extremis. Dumbfounded at this 
spectacle, I asked his relatives what had happened. 
What had he eaten? I had ordered, I may 
remark, a diet of milk. Said they : " He can 
eat nothing, he could not drink the milk, and it 
had no effect on him. [It is necessary for the 
Russian peasant to see effect before his very 
eyes.] Then we tried to make him take a little 
meat and cucumber " ! This was bad enough, and 
accounted for a good deal, but I was convinced 
that some other means had been employed to 
"bring him round." 

I then examined the poor man, and came to 
the conclusion that rupture had taken place, 
and that his hours on earth were few. He died 
within three hours of my arrival. The relatives 



RUSSIA'S POISON 237 

obstinately refused to enlighten me with any 
details of the supplementary treatment, which I 
felt sure had been dealt out to him with no un- 
sparing hand ; and it was only when I chanced 
upon the chemist of a neighbouring townlet or 
large village of some 2000 to 3000 inhabitants 
that I discovered the truth. 

Briefly, the facts were these : I had given no 
medicine nor Maz^ so a consultation was held, 
and the Feldsher, living five to six versts away, 
was hastily summoned. He arrived, and con- 
demned my treatment, and proceeded to deluge 
the unfortunate man with a quantity of nauseous 
mixtures, which caused a violent upheaval of the 
already injured intestine, to say nothing of terrific 
vomiting and diarrhoea. This went on for some 
hours, during which time no doubt the fatal 
rupture took place. 

Great agony preceded the rupture, which the 
Feldsher said he had anticipated, and gave further 
purgatives, and (as the relatives said) ^^ shook him 
standing up and lying down " ! " But," said they, 
''''even this did not relieve him, so, when the 
Feldsher had gone, we asked Marie Ivanovitch 
to see him." 



238 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Marie Ivanovitch, an old hag who dealt in 
ghostly incantations, and had a great reputation 
as a wonder-working Babooshka (old woman) or 
Znakhaka^ arrived, and giving in turn her list 
of abominations, proceeded to perform certain 
weird deeds on her unfortunate patient, one of 
which consisted in " spitting into his mouth," and 
another sitting on his abdomen, and turning as 
on a pivot six times without ceasing, muttering 
an incantation. If anything had been needed to 
complete the rupture, this drastic remedy would 
have succeeded — and indeed the relatives told 
the chemist that shortly after the treatment 
described, "he became quite quiet, and seemed 
to have no pain." I need not point out to my 
medical colleagues that the overtaxed bowel had 
yielded to the methods of the Feldsher and 
Znakhaka, and he died. 

Need I say more? I think not, except to give 
a few details of the life-history of these Feldshers, 
in whom the Russian peasantry have such trust. 
As a rule, he is an old soldier who, during his 
military career, has learned to bandage and apply 
a plaster; and if a military medicine chest has 
come into his keeping, he has, by the simple 



RUSSIA'S POISON 239 

expedient of trying one drug after another on 
his unfortunate comrades, discovered which have 
a tendency to cure and which to kill. 

In the Russo-Japanese War I came across 
many of these medical tyros, destined at a 
later date to practise their art, with an air as 
learned as the most pedagogical consultant 
in Harley Street, on their brethren in the 
Russian villages. I had numerous conversa- 
tions with these people, and well remember 
one in particular. 

I asked this unqualified practitioner how he 
arrived at a diagnosis, at the same time taking 
care to assume an interested air, as of a pupil 
towards his teacher. He was duly flattered, and 
gave me the following instructive answer, embody- 
ing a treatment which I give for the benefit of 
our big London Hospitals, where so much time 
and care is expended in the diagnosis of each 
malady. 

Said he : " Barin, when men feel ill, they want 
medicine, and medicine you must give. If you 
refuse medicine, they think you do not know what 
medicine to give ; therefore I always say, * You 
are really very ill — very ill.' Then they know 



240 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

at once that I understand their case, and will 
take anything I give. I have many mixtures 
of medicines which I made myself, and I know 
by experience now [a significant word that now] 
what is their efifect on most men. If they are 
sick, and bring one medicine up, I know that 
that was the wrong one and I give another. If 
he is again sick, or the desired result is not 
obtained, I have a remedy which will make any 
man bring up all the contents of his stomach, 
and this done, I know that I can start on fresh 
ground." Horrified at the heroic measures thus 
blandly discovered to me, but preserving the 
same expression suggestive of my thirst for 
knowledge, I asked, " And suppose he dies." 

Here the learned man drew his coat around 
him with one hand, and raised the other hand 
significantly above his head, pointing to the 
heavens. " Barzn" said he, with the utmost 
gravity, " God made all men, and the sick man 
and the physician are equally His creation. Then 
it is certain that if He permits my patients to 
die, that is not my affair ; and it would be 
wrong of me to blame Him or to be blamed 
myself by any one else." 



RUSSIA'S POISON 241 

There, my friend, is sublime faith and comfort- 
able resignation in the power of the Creator and 
the ways of Destiny. 

The Feldsher's methods are born to a great 
extent of his and the peasants' belief in supersti- 
tion, and these methods are freely used in con- 
finements. One of the most frequent means 
resorted to is for the Feldsher to stand upright 
on the unfortunate woman, then, while she spits 
repeatedly, he takes a series of leaps first to 
this side of the bed and then to that over the 
patient as she lies, and finally spits at the open 
door. By this means the Devil, the cause of 
the difficult confinement, is driven away, and the 
labour proceeds peacefully. 

But one will say, " How is it that the Russian 
peasantry as a race are such fine specimens of 
manhood, if brought up under such conditions?" 

I will answer that not only is it a fact that 
the peasant race is degenerating in physique in 
reality, but that also when one does see fine 
specimens, it simply means that the fittest 
survived. The mortality, especially during 
periods when food is scarce, as is the case this 
year, is immense. Ordinarily the mortality is 

Q 



242 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

the greatest in Europe — 33-36 per 1000 ; but in 
years such as this, and indeed last year, that per- 
centage in no wise represents the correct figure. 

In fifty villages taken at random in the Govern- 
ments of Riazan, Veronest, and Orel, through 
which I was travelling last winter^ those villages 
having populations ranging from 6(X)-200O people, 
I found an almost constant mortality of 70-80 
per 1000 inhabitants. Further, I invariably found 
that 80 per cent, of this number was composed 
of babies and young children. The birth-rate, 
however, though decreasing, is still high — 48 per 
1000 — and the population of Russia increases by 
2,000,000 every year. 

An interesting institution in connection with 
these young children is the Foundling Hospital 
of Moscow. In this enormous building I am 
informed that from 14,000-17,000 are received 
annually — carried there by their mothers from 
all parts of the Empire: from the frozen soil 
of Archangel, and the sunny regions of the 
Caucasus, from far-away Yakutsk, in the bleak 
wastes of Siberia, and from Manchuria's northern 
borders. Here they find refuge, here they are 
labelled, and an entry made such as — "No. 7416: 



RUSSIA'S POISON 243 

a boy, six weeks old. — Received 8th January 
1906, at 2 P.M."; and how often does one see 
after the entry: "No. 7416 — died, buried." 

On arrival, the child is invariably conveyed to 
the chapel, and received into the Greek Church, 
is baptized, named, and commences its existence 
with a certificate such as the following attached : 
"No 1 841 6: boy; baptized Peter Vassielivitch. 
Received loth June. — Healthy. Placed amongst 
the infants at the breast." 

The mortality in this Institution is immense, 
as may be imagined. Not only do the long 
journeys to which they are frequently exposed 
act as the cause of death shortly after arrival, 
but it can be understood that the system of wet- 
nurses would have to be perfect indeed to afford 
good nutriment to each child. But one wet- 
nurse may have three, four, or five children to 
suckle, and the results can be gauged ! I am 
informed that the mortality is 65-70 per cent, 
annually. 

Further, it may be said that notwithstanding 
the benefit to those infants, who may be snatched 
from the jaws of winter and a peasant life, to 
be educated as decent human beings, yet the 



244 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Institution has a direct drawback in the use that 
is made of it as a sink to which the products 
of illegitimacy may be brought, to say nothing 
of those unnaturally cruel mothers, who bring 
their children here to get them out of the way, 
for no questions are asked here. However, from 
the purely educational point of view, the Institu- 
tion is worthy of all praise, and places the 
children there deposited in an incomparably 
better position than their little brethren in the 
villages from whence they hail. For what has 
a Bureaucratic Administration provided up to 
date in the shape of institutions for the educa- 
tion of peasants ? Literally, nothing. 

From my own observations, and from informa- 
tion I have gleaned from people who have 
traversed the limits of the Empire, I believe 
that I am not exaggerating when I give the 
average percentage of the peasantry who are 
able to read and write but moderately well at 
from 2-5 per cent. 

My first series of observations led me to put 
the figure a little higher, but I have since drawn 
the lamentable conclusion that even my first 
meagre percentage was above the mark. Go 



RUSSIA'S POISON 245 

where one will through Russia, one finds little 
or no provision made for the rising generation. 
Russia's millions of young minds are being fed 
on nothing but police laws. Schools are here and 
there dotted throughout the immense regions, but 
in such scanty numbers that it is impossible for 
more than a very few to make use of the 
facilities afforded for education. I have reason 
to think that at least 60 per cent, up to last 
year were not receiving any education at all ; and 
since the beginning of the troubles of last year, 
when the police have been multiplied in direct 
proportion as the schools have been decreased, 
I have no hesitation in affirming that the per- 
centage of untaught children given above is far 
behind the mark. Schools have been closed, 
teachers imprisoned, and the whole system of 
organisation, which it is said had begun to be 
developed throughout the country (although one 
saw little of this great wave of progress), was 
nipped in the bud. Bureaucracy determined to 
fight against intellect, and the attempt to oust 
them from the country, by leaving the peasant 
masses in ignorance, so that they at least should 
be retained in the mire, unacquainted with the 



246 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

evils of the Administration by which they are 
ruled. They determined that at any rate the 
peasants' eyes should remain shut as long as 
possible, realising that their own strength lay in 
the ignorance and bestial condition of the peasant. 

In the villages in which schools are to be 
found, more often than not owing to the bene- 
ficence of the local proprietor, whose action 
always lays him open to the tyranny of the 
military and police, we find the teachers labour- 
ing under such restrictions that make it impossible 
for them to make even a shallov/ pretence of 
teaching. 

Many cases came to my knowledge last winter, 
and also this, of sudden visits being made to 
schools by the chief of the local police, who, 
after examining the books of instruction and 
listening to the system of teaching, ordered the 
school to be shut, giving as a reason that, in 
his opinion, the instruction given to the pupils 
was calculated to make them revolutionaries. In 
many schools I have heard that the old Slav 
alphabet is taught, and such passages from the 
Scriptures as are deemed by the local police to 
have no bearing on practical politics. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 247 

Last year I was fortunate enough to witness a 
descent on a village by the police. Here the 
priest was a suspect, and also the teacher. Be 
that as it may, history was being read to the 
boys, and the unwise teacher made some very 
commonplace remark re the fact that our King 
Charles I. lost his head The remark was 
made, I have since thought, to show me the 
depth of the teacher's knowledge. At any rate, 
at the mention of a king being executed, the 
ignorant Police Inspector frowned, and immedi- 
ately gave orders to his satellites to close the 
school. To teach the children that such a 
subject could be even thought of, much less dis- 
cussed, was nothing short of treason. The lesson 
was stopped, the school shut, and is still shut, 
and the teacher marched off under arrest. 

Priests (although such instances are rare, as 
they are as a rule Bureaucrats) have been hurried 
to gaol for what has been termed "seditiously 
instructing" their flock, and in the majority of 
cases when the books of a school have been 
removed, it has been History that has suffered 
the brunt of the censorship. The Bureaucrat 
loathes History as he loathes the sight of a free 



248. THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

man, for History teaches people what has been 
in the past, and leads them to draw comparisons 
between their own country and others. 

The peasantry must not know what a pig-sty 
they live in, must not know what the peasantry 
of other lands are like, must not know of French 
Revolutions and executions of kings and queens; 
that is dangerous to Bureaucracy. The peasantry 
may know anything except the Truth, and the 
Bureaucrat will expend the last kopek of the 
people's money in the effort to stop them know- 
ing that. Consequently the police are given carte 
blanche. They are responsible to no one, and 
do exactly as they please, using the authority 
placed in their hands in the most senseless, 
absurd, and childlike way, and performing their 
duties in a most cruel and inhumane manner. 

Amongst most of the police officials common- 
sense seems at a discount ; they seem incapable 
of bringing tact of any sort whatever to bear on 
any situation that arises. Brutality and rudeness 
are the only qualities that they appear to have; 
and especially is this the case in the country 
districts, where, far removed from the eye of the 
central authorities, they do as they please with 



RUSSIA'S POISON 249 

the peasantry, extorting money or kind from 
them by threats or actual punishment, and 
stopping at nothing in order to terrorise them 
for the purpose of making them simple tools for 
their own ends. 

My experience of the village policeman is that 
he is literally king of the country in which he 
has his beat, and is, as a rule, nothing better 
than a tyrant. His word is law; it is always 
taken as the truth in preference to the state- 
ments of the muzhik; and it would cause the 
eyes of our English country villagers to open 
if the local policeman was to take it into his 
head to clear them from the interior of the 
village inn, or force them to make way for 
some personage, say the Squire, by thrusting 
himself amongst them, and boxing their ears 
indiscriminately. Yet such is an everyday sight 
in Russia, and the mob of patient peasantry 
raises not a murmur, but disperses helter-skelter 
at the rude bidding of the representative of 
Russia's worst and most to be deprecated branch 
of the Bureaucratic system. 

Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace tells the story 
of a village policeman or ovriadnik^ who, happen- 



250 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

ing to find a dead body, made a huge sum of 
money by carrying it about on his sleigh from 
village to village, and announcing that he had dis- 
covered it outside the village. He so frightened 
the ignorant peasants with threats to have them 
punished for the deed, that they acceded to 
any demand he made, on the condition that he 
would not proceed against them. 

I think I can cap that from my own experiences. 
A couple of policemen killed a muzhik by brutal 
treatment, but not content with that, actually had 
the audacity to carry the body from village to 
village, as stated above, and fleece the unfortun- 
ate peasantry. 

Morals are not to be found amongst the minions 
of the Bureaucracy. " Complain," you say. How? 
You might just as well say that the unfortunate 
peasantry whom I related drank camphor liniment 
should read the labels. They cannot read, neither 
can they write ; and further than this, if they 
could, who is going to print their complaints? 
The local paper? My readers, Russia is not 
England. Those letters, if printed, would mean 
the shutting of the paper office, and the Bureau- 
cratic official veto on the publishing of the paper. 




Village School and Priest. 

(The School Teacher is on the rightsof the picture.) 




To face p. 250. 



5iberian Peasant and his Izba. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 251 

The local Censor, generally the Governor of 
the province, or at any rate his officials, are not 
going to permit any truths to appear regarding 
the Bureaucratic System, so that it is impossible 
for complaints to be heard. If a paper bolder 
than the rest takes the risk, and without showing 
the Censor the next day's edition, prints and 
publishes it, and it contains attacks against the 
iniquitous r^gime^ that paper is immediately sup- 
pressed for ever, and, as a rule, the editor arrested 
and committed to gaol — as a Revolutionary. 
Frequently the editor of a local paper is ready 
with his proofs for the edition of the following 
day, and has sent copies to the Governor's office, 
but hour after hour goes, and there is no sign of 
the expected messenger with the permission for 
the printing of the paper. The editor and his 
assistants wait wearily through the long night 
hours, and it is no uncommon thing for them to 
give the vigil up in disgust, and go home, no 
edition of the paper appearing the following day, 
simply because the Censor has probably been at 
a big dinner-party or ball, and has not taken the 
trouble to read the proofs submitted. 

All last year there was, and there still is, a strict 



252 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

censorship exercised over all papers, letters, and 
pamphlets entering the Russian villages. I know 
of many villages where enlightened proprietors 
have erected a small library for the peasants in 
his village, and the villages around. With what 
result ? The police have raided the village, seized 
the books, and fined the proprietor. 

A lady I know in Orel hired four rooms, and 
fitted them out as a club and reading-room for the 
peasantry and artisans. Three days elapsed after 
it had been started when the police arrived, beat 
the peasants brutally whom they found there 
reading, took the books, and closed the building. 
Deeds such as these are legion. 

A Russian proprietor of my acquaintance per- 
mitted the peasantry to use a large room in his 
country house in order that they might meet there, 
and discuss social questions and village affairs. 
No action was taken by the police till my friend 
himself went down to the country to aid in their 
deliberations for the good of the village. The 
following day he was told that he would be sent 
to gaol for three months if he did not pay the 
police two hundred roubles as a fine for " talking 
politics " to his peasantry. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 253 

Thus restricted, how can humane and en- 
lightened proprietors aid the peasantry to rise 
from their bed of ignorance, and how can the 
peasantry be expected to do much towards aiding 
themselves? Born into a world bounded by the 
limits of his own village, and ruled nominally 
by the Tzar but actually by police as ignorant 
and incapable as they are brutal, the young 
peasant child early imbibes that sense of servi- 
tude, that servile obedience to authority, which 
makes him the cringing being he is. He is born 
a serf to authority, a slave to police oppression, 
whatever the laws of the country may endeavour 
to make us believe to the contrary. 

Nevertheless, the Russian peasant, properly 
trained and properly led, makes a fine soldier, 
although lacking initiative. From the earliest ] 
times this has been the case. Witness the tribute 
paid to him by a poet during the reign of the 
great Catherine 1 1. : 

" The Russian, hunger, thirst, fatigue subdues, 
His foe across each desert wild pursues. 
Dares adverse fortune, dares impending fate, 
Andj prodigal of life, is bravely great. 
Humble yet proud, his banners wide unfurled 
Guide but his arm, he'll subjugate the world." 



254 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

But alas ! these fine soldiers are so lamentably 
ignorant that up to the present day they have 
not seemed to grasp the fact that an ignorant 
and crafty Bureaucracy merely use them as tools 
to keep their own kith and kin in subjection. 
Strange irony, that peasants should go on day 
after day permitting themselves to be the means 
of keeping their own fathers, mothers, and sisters 
in a state of serfdom, whereas, if they only thought 
for one moment, they would realise that without 
their aid the Bureaucracy would be powerless 
to retain them in the disgraceful position they 
are in to-day. 

But the Governments of Russia have so far 
been crafty. One never sees a regiment of soldiers 
in a province from which they themselves have 
been recruited. No ! that would be too dangerous. 
Those from the North are sent South, those from 
the East are sent West, and vice versa, so that 
the innate brutality in the Russian soldier may 
not be softened while " quelling " disorder by find- 
ing himself called to give the quietus to his aged 
father or young brother. And so the Russian 
world goes on — back, back, ever back. Reaction 
follows reaction. Every year since 1887 has seen 



RUSSIA'S POISON 255 

fresh Governmental Decrees placing restrictions 
on this, that, and the other — education, the press, 
free speech, and the liberty of the person. 

Meanwhile the restrictions of the people's rights 
naturally raised indignation and riots, and to 
combat these Bureaucracy proclaimed a state 
of siege in Petersburg and other large towns, 
whilst the Minister of the Interior was endowed 
with power to suspend all Imperial Decrees, and 
had immediate power over life and death. Mr 
Geoffrey Drage says that in his memorial to 
Nicholas II. in 1903, M. Demchinski said that 
when the Minister of the Interior wished to 
hang a man he had but to proclaim the state of 
enforced protection in a particular district. That 
district then became "outside the law," and any 
number of men could be killed by the mere 
order of the Governor-General. 

A new police system was formed, by which 
every police official had the power to arrest 
without trial, and exile without appeal. Warsaw 
is ground down under this system at the present 
moment ; and to such excesses do the military 
go that I am convinced that neither the Tzar 
nor M. Stolypin have any idea of the state of 
things that exist there. 



256 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

M. Stolypin has said : " It will be our aim 
to do away with Bureaucracy." May strength 
and courage be granted him to accomplish his 
object, will be the fervent wish of all honest men 
and lovers of justice. 

The "justice" carried on in Warsaw to-day 
is nothing less than criminal — and I do not 
speak without knowledge, for I have had friends 
— innocent friends — suffer terribly by that same 
"justice." In a pamphlet recently issued by the 
Society called the "Alliance of the Russian 
People," the members of which choice gathering 
are the worst type of reactionaries and Bureau- 
crats, and are designated by the people as the 
" Black Hundred," appear the following humane 
and civilised suggestions for the maintenance of 
order in Russia amongst the people: Crimes 
against Government, life, robbery, incendiarism, 
unlawful preparation, preservation, transport, 
carriage, and use of explosives and instruments 
of anarchists and revolutionaries, participants 
in their crimes, receiving of suspected goods, 
housing of suspected persons, forcible prevention 
of work and the closing of industrial and 
merchandise establishments, the damaging of 



RUSSIA'S POISON 257 

bridges, roads, and machines with the aim of 
interrupting activity or stopping work, arming 
against authority, propagating revolutionary ideas 
in the army ; instigating women and minors to 
any of the crimes above mentioned must be 
punished by the Death Sentence! 

How can a country progress when under the 
thumb of people of this type ? how can institutions 
thrive? how can people exist? It is impossible. 
Peep into any Government Office in town or 
country, and see the working habits of the 
Bureaucratic regi^ne. Travel to any part of 
Russia you will, and take any branch of any 
one part of the Administration, and examine its 
methods. You will soon discover that Russia is 
behind every other country in the world, either 
civilised or anywhere near being civilised. 

Let us take, for instance, the Russian Post 
Office, and enter the post-house of a small town 
of from 5000 to 10,000 inhabitants. Darkness ; a 
multitude of figures, caps respectfully in hand, 
waiting patiently with that patience which only 
Russians have, before a small aperture closed by 
a thick foot-square pane of glass, which occasion- 
ally is drav/n aside to disclose the head of a 

R 



258 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Russian postal official, who, with a growl, as if 
the public had no right there, demands what is 
wanted. " Letters, papers, etc., for the village of 
X," says he who is fortunate enough to be first 
in the long list of patient waiters. " Tak " (" So "), 
says the sphinx-like face, and the glass is closed 
to with a bang, while the powers that be in that 
Post Office discuss a cigarette and tea, and decide 
whether they may deliver without suspicion these 
letters, and also ascertain if they have read all 
they wished in the papers. 

Patience on the one side, exasperating delay 
on the other : but you cannot hurry a Russian 
Tchinovnik — such a thing is impiety ; he is 
king of his bureau, which is for him and his 
myrmidons a place wherein to sleep, sit, and 
drink tea and absorb perquisites. The public is 
dirt; it is not even taken into account. 

After five to ten minutes the glass is again 
drawn aside, and either the letters are handed 
over or else, if the Natchalnik or post - master 
wishes to be nasty, he will demand as a proof 
of identity (although he may have known you 
for months) to see the passport ; and if the 
unfortunate individual has not his passport with 



RUSSIA'S POISON 259 

him, back go the letters into the obscurity of 
the Bureaucratic den. 

Further justification can always be found amidst 
the masses of Bureaucratic laws, the second of 
which invariably contradicts the first for detain- 
ing letters or packets in order to send them for 
examination to the Censor for the detection of 
fancied iniquities, revolutionary ideas, or Nihilistic 
implements of warfare. 

Delay in the Russian post and in every Govern- 
mental bureau is king. The public is not studied 
in any way, and expedition in their business is 
of no importance to the Tchinovnik^ since he has 
no other wish than to sleep, sit, smoke, drink 
tea, eat, and revel in the feeling of impenetrable 
mystery which surrounds the dealings of every 
Government official, and which impresses nine- 
tenths of the masses of the people with an 
awesome sense of their dignity, sitting there 
taking counsel together, their deliberations pre- 
sided over by that never - lacking feature in a 
Russian public office — the full-length portrait of 
His Majesty, the Tzar of all the Russias. First 
and foremost amongst his duties, your true 
Bureaucrat considers it his duty to write. What- 



26o THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

ever you may require beyond the purchase of 
stamps needs pages of writing, which mean 
nothing and guarantee less. Your Russian 
official says : " Yes, if your packet or letter is 
not received, we will pay you ten roubles," or 
more, as the case may be. What happens ? 
Your letter is detained, perhaps for weeks, by 
the Censor, until he has leisure to read it. You 
complain that your letter has not been received. 
"Oh," says the official; *^ sechas^ sechas ; you 
cannot know if it is lost. Wait ; your friends 
will receive it." And your friends perhaps do 
receive it, weeks and months after the time of 
sending it ; and the official says with triumph 
and unctuous rectitude : " See, your letter was 
not lost ! the Russian post cannot make a 
mistake." 

It is true, nothing is ever lost in Russia ; it 
is only deposited. No scheme is ever absolutely 
negatived ; it is postponed — indefinitely. No 
Russian official ever gives you a clear, straight- 
forward answer. He either lies straight out, or 
he says " Sechas (Wait a bit), we will see 
what can be done." That means he will wait to 
see whether any money will be put into his 
pocket by the transaction. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 261 

Robbery from top to bottom of the Bureau- 
cratic system ; and not content with robbing the 
Russian people of their money and liberty, they 
seek to rob them of knowledge. 

All literature or letters entering the country 
that the Bureaucracy deem breathe a progressive 
spirit, it blacks with indelible ink, so that its 
children, the 140,000,000 of the great Russian 
race, shall not imbibe other nourishment than 
what Bureaucracy considers good for it, and, 
above all, shall not know what Bureaucracy most 
fears — the Truth ! 

Wander where you will amidst the official net- 
work which strangles Russia in its grasp, and 
you find Bureaucracy sitting behind its little 
window, and peering out upon the world and 
upon the public as a prison warder spying at 
criminals. Suspicion reigns, and Centralisation 
and Delay are the gods of Government. Docu- 
ments in piles must be written before even the 
simplest wants can be attended to, much less 
satisfied ; and one Tchinovnik after the other must 
see these documents, and add yet more meaning- 
less hieroglyphics, and take a yet larger sum 
according to his rank from the pockets of the 



262 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Russian public, before he deigns to set his 
cramped brain, sodden with years of formality 
and red tape, to work. 

And when the Bureaucrat does condescend to 
work, his first idea is, " How much can I put 
in my own pocket?" And, be it understood, 
it is not the public he takes into account ; he 
is only anxious as to how the Tchinovnik above 
him will act if he in his turn finds that his 
subordinate pocketed more than his rank per- 
mitted him to — for Bureaucracy fears a superior 
Tchin, and cowers abjectly beneath the foot of 
superior official rank in exact proportion as it 
has unmitigated contempt for the people. Bureau- 
cracy lives for Bureaucracy, and nothing else ; 
the formalities attending Tchin must be honoured 
first before the public needs can possibly be 
thought of; and in nine cases out of ten the 
formalities consist in the wholesale robbery of 
the public by the hundred and one titled 
Tckinovniks, until for the actual object for which 
any funds may have been voted — famine, public 
institution, battle-ship, etc., etc. — nothing remains 
but statistics and an imposing array of documents 
stamped with the Imperial Eagle. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 263 

"Fill your own pocket first," is the Russian 
official motto, and everybody knows it and 
expects it, so nobody is surprised at anything. 
Nobody was surprised during the Japanese War, 
when the boxes supposed to contain food, drugs, 
clothing for the Army, arrived at Harbin, bear- 
ing bricks and straw. How many thousands I 
myself saw opened containing these materials 
in Harbin I prefer to forget ; but I remember 
well that the porters and the station officials 
called the supply trains the " bricks and straw 
trains." Nobody was surprised when the money 
for a battle-ship was squandered by one man on 
his dissolute acquaintances in Petersburg, and on 
the buying of estates. Nobody was surprised, 
when after Liao Yang new guns were required, 
it was discovered that the supply of these weapons 
at the chief arsenal in the country had been 
exhausted, all of them having been melted down 
and sold before the war. 

And who effected all these honourable trans- 
actions, at the expense of their country, at the 
expense of Russia's sons, fighting weaponless 
and unclothed in the Far East? The Russian 
Bureaucrat. 



264 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

It would be unjust to a considerable number 
of men to deny the existence of all honesty 
amongst the members of the Bureaucracy ; but 
they are few and far between. Russia's chief 
satirist, the great Gogol, provides us with an 
accurate picture of Russian official life as it is 
to-day. I recommend him to those of my readers 
who would wish to see confirmed what I have 
written. The Russian people may be all that is 
desirable, and I for one am a sincere friend and 
well - wisher of the real Russian people ; but in 
any affair connected with Russia to-day, people 
are not dealing with the real Russian people — 
it to all intents and purposes does not exist ; they 
are dealing with the Russian Bureaucrat, who, 
whatever may be the honest aspirations of Tzar, 
Premier, or Government, rules Russia to - day ; 
and no dealings with Russia — political, social, or 
financial — can be considered seriously till there 
arises a Government strong enough and able 
enough, in combination with the united will of 
the people, to abolish Bureaucracy, and sweep it 
off the face of Russia. 

And then? Then there are other cords en- 
circling our unfortunate friend, cords which bind 



RUSSIA'S POISON 265 

him to superstition, and consequently to ignorance 
— the cords of the Church. Not that the priest 
himself, as a man^ has actually a great deal of 
influence over the peasant, as I shall attempt to 
show ; but the priest, as the living representative 
of a Church which he fears, is likewise feared. 
The power of the Church is undeniable amongst 
the peasantry. The Russian child is born and 
bred in superstition, and that fact has an effect 
on his disposition and character not easily over- 
estimated. 

From the Secret Memoirs of the Court of 
Catherine II., written in French by an author 
who remains anonymous, I take the following : 

"It has often been made matter of reproach to 
Religion that her most zealous defenders are not 
always the best of men in their own characters. 
Russia in particular affords matter in support of 
this sarcasm. It is there that the most illiterate, 
the most degenerate sect of Christianity still sub- 
stitutes dogmas in the place of morals ; miracles 
instead of reason ; the performance of ceremonies 
instead of the practice of virtue. The principal 
causes of the vices of the people is the immorality 
of their religion, and he who considers that in 
the Russo-Greek Church there are neither sermons 
nor exhortations nor catechisms will be at once 



266 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

of my opinion. A sort of auricular confession, 
but very different from that of the Catholic, is 
the only act which reminds the Russian of a few 
of his duties ; but all that the confessor enjoins 
him consists in fasting, repeating Litanies, and 
making the sign of the Cross. One of the chief 
causes of the vices and ignorance of the Russian 
priests is to be ascribed to the Greek religion 
itself, which prohibits them to read any book 
except their Breviary, to employ themselves in 
any occupation, to do any work, or to play on 
any instrument of music. Besides the fifty-two 
Sundays in the year, the Russians celebrate sixty- 
three festivals. In the towns these are days of 
pomp, balls, and feasting ; in the villages — drunken- 
ness and disorder. The most despicable and most 
despised of all persons in Russia are the priests. 
Many of them cannot even read ; yet they are 
more despicable for their drunkenness and in- 
temperance than for their gross ignorance. There 
are seminaries for their tuition, indeed ; but it is 
not always necessary for a man to have been 
educated in them in order to become a priest. 
A father bequeaths to his son his living, his 
church, and his flock ; for this he wants nothing 
but the consent of his lord, who easily obtains 
that of the bishop. If the son be able as his 
father was before him to read a little in the Slavon 
language, say Mass, and chant vespers, he is 
master of his trade, and follows it. He often gets 
drunk and fights with his parishioners, who, not- 



RUSSIA'S POISON 267 

withstanding, kiss his hand and ask his blessing 
after they have given him a drubbing. On certain 
days in the year these popes make the tour of 
their parishes, demanding from hut to hut, eggs, 
butter, flax, fowls, etc. On their return they are 
seen either lying dead drunk in their cart amongst 
the provisions, or merrily singing from this moving 
pulpit. It is not uncommon in the streets of 
Moscow and Petersburg to meet drunken priests 
and monks, reeling along, swearing, singing, and 
insulting the passers-by, male and female. The 
common people observe with the most scrupulous 
exactitude the four grand Lents which are enjoined 
them, and at which times their superstition carries 
them far. The conscience of a Russian would not 
be so much affected by a theft or a murder from 
which he might obtain absolution as by having 
eaten meal, milk, or an egg during Lent. Every 
Russian, besides the consecrated amulet he wears 
about his neck which he receives at his baptism, 
and which he never lays aside, commonly carries 
in his pocket a figure of St Nicholas or other 
patron saint, stamped on gold, silver, or brass. 
A Russian nobleman's god accompanies him on 
his journeyings. He is clothed in silver and gold, 
and on his arrival at his journey's end, the image 
is placed by the servant in his master's room, 
who immediately honours him with his prostra- 
tions. A certain Russian Princess had always 
a large silver crucifix following her in a separate 
carriage. When anything fortunate happened 



268 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

during the day, or she was satisfied with her 
admirers, she had lighted candles placed about 
the crucifix, and said to it, ' See now, as you have 
been very good to-day, you shall have candles 
all night. I will love you — I will pray to you ! * 
If anything occurred to vex the lady, she ex- 
tinguished the candles, forbade the servants to 
pay any homage to the poor image, and loaded 
it with reproaches and revilings." 

Now let us glance at the status of the priest 
in the nineteenth century — a hundred years 
after the above was written. I will quote from 
the pages of Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace 
the translation of a secret report made by 
M. Melnikoff, "an orthodox Russian, celebrated 
for his extensive knowledge of Russian life," to 
the Grand Duke Constantine : — 

" The people," we read, " do not respect the clergy, 
but persecute them with derision and reproaches, 
and feel them to be a burden. In nearly all the 
popular comic stories the priest, his wife, or his 
labourer is held up to ridicule. The people shun 
the clergy, and have recourse to them not from 
the inner impulse of conscience but from necessity. 
And why do the people not respect the clergy? 
Because it forms a class apart ; because having 
received a false education, it does not introduce 
into the life of the people the teaching of the 



RUSSIA'S POISON 269 

Spirit, but remains in the mere dead forms of 
outward ceremonial ; because the clergy itself 
continually presents examples of want of respect 
to religion, and transforms the service of God 
into a profitable trade. Can the people respect 
the clergy when they hear how one priest stole 
money from below the pillow of a dying man, 
how another was publicly dragged out of a place 
of ill fame, how a third while officiating at the 
Easter service was dragged by his hair from the 
altar by the deacon. Is it possible to respect 
priests who spend their time in the spirit-shop, 
write fraudulent petitions, fight with the Cross 
in their hands, and abuse each other in bad 
language at the altar. Is it possible for the 
people to respect the priests, when they see 
everywhere among them simony, carelessness in 
performing the religious ceremonies, and disorder 
in administering the sacraments ? Is it possible 
for the people to respect the clergy when they see 
that truth has disappeared from it, and that the 
Consistories, guided in their decisions by bribery, 
destroy in it the last remains of truthfulness? If 
we add to this the false certificates which the 
clergy give to those who do not wish to partake 
of the Eucharist, the dues illegally extracted from 
old Ritualists, the conversion of the altar into a 
source of revenue, the giving of churches to priests, 
daughters as a dowry, and similar phenomena, the 
question as to whether the people can respect the 
clergy requires no answer." 



270 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Here are pictures of our village priest in the 
not so very distant past which need no comment ; 
but much can be said to exculpate them from 
blame, and their status as depicted then and now. 
From my own personal observation and know- 
ledge gained whilst living with them, I can 
unhesitatingly state there is a great improvement 
in the class as a whole. There is much to be 
deprecated even now, and many black sheep to 
be found amongst them, but the general tone is 
a great deal higher. However, still there remains 
that want of intimacy, that lack of respect between 
priest and parishioner, which is essential for the 
peasant's well-being, and for the maintenance of 
anything like reverence for their religion. 

The Russian clergy are called Black and 
White. The Black are the cloistered clergy of 
the monasteries, and hold a more revered, more 
respected position than their brethren, the White 
— secular or village priests. The latter may be 
seen any day in the Russian villages, clothed in 
their long brown gowns ; wide - awake, tall, felt 
black hats, or those of velvet trimmed with fur ; 
their long black hair falling in ringlets down 
their backs and over their shoulders, while their 



RUSSIA'S POISON 271 

long beards give them a venerable appearance, as 
they walk with sedate step, aided by a long brown 
stick studded at the handle with a silver knob. 

The priests were originally elected by the 
parishioners, but the Bishops found that such 
illiterate people were presented as the choice of 
the peasantry, that they at last decided to 
choose for themselves those fit to be priests. 
This led to the formation of a seminary for the 
sons of the clergy, and as the outcome of this 
arose the absolute separation of the White Priest 
class as a distinct clerical family, keeping severely 
to itself, and admitting no outsiders to its ranks. 
And indeed no outsiders were needed, for a 
" White Clergy " clerical proletariat, owing to 
the excessive multiplication of the children of 
the priests, was soon formed, and the surplus 
(that party of them which were unfortunate 
enough not to be provided with livings) were 
hard put to it to exist. 

This fact alone will be easily understood to 
have had a deleterious effect on the White 
Clergy as a class, and must have constituted 
a great reason, not only for their deplorable 
condition up till the last century, but also for the 



272 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

bad relations and little respect existing between 
them and their parishioners to-day. The idea, 
as in England, of a pastor possessing the con- 
fidence of his flock, comforting the afflicted, help- 
ing the poverty-stricken, giving advice to those 
in spiritual doubt, and rebuking the wayward, is 
not understood either by the Russian priest or 
his parishioners. A priest's advice is practically 
never asked in the higher circles of Russian 
society nor in the middle strata ; and the Russian 
peasant thinks much more of the family ikon 
and the ceremonies and rites of the Church than 
the personality of the priest himself They call 
him Batooskka, a word expressing as near as 
possible " Dear Little Father," and this expres- 
sion is as near as the peasant gets to evincing 
anything like love or reverence. It would seem 
as if the peasant takes the priest to be merely 
a necessary item of the Church's ceremonies and 
needs. Therefore he holds a certain position 
inside the Church, but outside he has none 
whatever. Indeed, he is still looked down upon, 
though morally and mentally he has improved 
out of all recognition, notwithstanding the fact 
that his increased education seems to have led 



RUSSIA'S POISON 273 

him to imbibe bureaucratic and reactionary ideas. 
Therefore the peasant turns in sunshine and 
sorrow to his ikon or his baptismal amulet. 
One will frequently see him take this out from 
beneath his clothes, spit on it, clean it, then 
placing it opposite to him, kneel prostrate before 
it and murmur forty Gospodi Pomolui (" Lord, 
have mercy upon us"). As has been aptly said, 
" The Egyptians had their gods in their gardens, 
the Africans carry them in their arms, and the 
Russians frequently in their trousers." 

There are two classes of ikons — the ordinary 
ones made by men's hands, and those called 
miracle-working, holy ikons. The mode of bring- 
ing these latter into being is worth recording. 
A monk, or even a layman, has a vision in which 
he is informed of the presence of a miraculous 
ikon hidden at a certain spot. He hastens thither, 
generally at the dead of night for reasons that 
will be imagined by my readers, and the next 
day the countryside runs wild with the news. 
The Holy Synod in St Petersburg is informed, 
and takes steps to what it calls "verify" the 
accuracy of the details. These generally are 
proved up to the hilt, for I have been informed 



274 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

that in the case of an ancient and important 
church whose funds are low, the Synod is con- 
sulted beforehand as to whether, in the event 
of an ikon being found, it would be recognised 
by it as a holy one, and so be permitted to act 
as a producer of revenue for the impoverished 
church in question, the people being in the 
habit of flocking from all parts of Russia to pay 
homage to one thus miraculously sent to earth. 
This authorisation having been received from the 
Synod, the ikon is duly " discovered," and becomes 
an image to which devotion is paid by thousands 
of weeping and wailing pilgrims, yearly travelling 
from all parts of the Empire. 

And this is the twentieth century, and these 
preposterous Church frauds take place in a 
country which boasts of being part of civilised 
Europe, and are believed in by ioo,cx)0,ooo of 
the deluded subjects of Nicholas II.! 

In some instances the ikon is thought wonderful 
enough (or, to put it in another way, the Holy 
Synod wish to endow a particular church with 
a good benefit, so permit the ikon) to have a 
fete day all to itself The method of ordaining 
a f§te day and its origin are peculiarly interesting. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 275 

In 1796, in the days of the Emperor Paul, a 
coffin was found at the Convent of Sumorin, in 
the city of Trotma, in the eparchy of Vologda, 
containing the corpse of a monk. It had been 
interred in 1598, yet was in a state of perfect 
preservation, as were also the garments. From 
the letters embroidered on these, it was found 
to be the body of the most venerable Feodose 
Sumorin, founder and superior of the Convent, 
a man who had been acknowledged as a saint 
during his life for the miracles he had performed. 
The Synod made a report to Paul of the 
miraculous discovery, and the Emperor pro- 
mulgated the following sublime Ukase : 

" We, Paul, etc. : Having been certified by 
special report of the Holy Synod of the dis- 
covery that has been made in the Convent of 
Spasso Sumorin, of the miraculous remains of 
the most venerable Feodose, which miraculous 
remains distinguish themselves by the happy 
cure of all those who have recourse to them with 
entire confidence ; we take the discovery of these 
holy remains as a visible sign that the Lord 
has cast His most gracious eye in the most dis- 
tinguished manner on our reign. For this reason 
we offer our fervent prayers and our gratitude 
to the Supreme Disposer of all things, and charge 



276 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

our most Holy Synod to proclaim this memorable 
discovery throughout all our Empire according 
to the forms prescribed by the Holy Church and 
by the Holy Fathers," etc., etc. 

Thus are fete days created in Russia ! Fete 
days or saints' days and ikons go hand in hand 
in the "education" of the people, and Russia's 
men of eminence have willy-nilly to submit to 
being deluged with the latter, and pretend to be 
much impressed in order that Russia's peasantry 
may be gulled still more into believing these 
superstitions. 

I well remember that General Kuropatkin had 
seventy ikons of all sizes presented to him before 
starting for the Japanese War, and I have heard 
the peasants express wonderment that in con- 
sequence he did not meet with more success. 

One word as to the salaries of the Russian 
priesthood. The incomes range ridiculously 
low, but that of the higher monks, such as 
the Metropolitan and Bishops, is augmented 
by gifts of land, and maybe a rich convent. 
Thus the Metropolitan's income of ;£"25o is 
augmented by these means to about 30,000 to 
40,000 roubles =£^1^00 to ;;^2000. The lower 



RUSSIA'S POISON 277 

ranks have incomes less in proportion, and the 
parish priests would do badly indeed without aid 
in the shape of provisions from the peasantry 
and proprietors. It seems that the salaries of 
the Church are in inverse proportion to the 
ceremonial. 

Who that has ever witnessed a Russian service 
— a Mass, for instance — can ever forget it ? 
Indeed, such a ceremonial must not be missed 
by those who would know something of the Slav 
character. Enter the stately doors of that church, 
round which the beggars cluster, clothed in foul 
rags and loathsome with disease, their hands 
outstretched to crave a coin, and catch it as it 
falls. Enter. The incense-laden air suggests the 
scented boudoir ; languor steals over the brain ; 
a sense of luxury dominates one's soul — a feeling 
heightened by the gorgeous scene and the still 
silence of the lofty edifice, crowned with golden 
domes. Ikons of gold in golden frames, on 
which candles in candlesticks of solid gold shed 
brilliant light, causing the diamonds, sapphires, 
and countless precious stones to sparkle with 
a dazzling gleam. Gold candelabra, holding 
a myriad shining lights, reveal the paintings 



278 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

covering wall and ceiling, and those shrines in 
shadowy niche where saints lie resting in their 
last long sleep, a candle ever burning night and 
day. 

The church is packed. Motionless masses 
stand in expectation. There are no seats: proud 
noble shoulders peasant ; the simple sheepskin 
kisses the frock of fashion, and scent-laden dames 
rustle and rub in silken finery against humble 
peasant women. All sound is hushed except 
the still murmur of reverent whispering, when 
suddenly a stentorian voice breaks on the death- 
like silence : " In the name of Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, service beginneth." The Holy Books, 
glistening in gold and silver and every precious 
stone, are carried by two men, who can hardly 
lift them ; and now the priest reads in rich- 
resounding voice the lesson of the day, repeating 
at frequent intervals ^^ Gospodi Pomolui" ("God, 
have mercy upon us"). Those carven doors, 
covered with silken veil, conceal the great High 
Priest, whose entry all await. The chorus of the 
hidden choir now breaks on the ear — a soft, sweet 
chant that seizes one's soul, and lifts one from 
thoughts of earth to dreams of Heaven. The 



RUSSIA'S POISON 279 

sacred paean rises in solemn strain, whilst hearts 
beat in unison ; and the great High Priest enters, 
holding aloft the golden chalice, filled with the 
rich red wine, and murmurs a silent prayer, 
blessing the holy bread. Silence till now has 
reigned midst the densely - packed masses, but 
now the great bells peal, shaking the marble 
floor beneath one's feet. The golden ikons^ the 
glittering candlesticks, the walls, even the church 
foundations tremble with the swell, while those 
but lately motionless, awed by the scene, now 
bend in reverence, crossing themselves again and 
yet again, and touch the church's sacred stones 
with bended head, kissing the very dirt on which 
they lately stood. 

See there a frantic, frenzied host of muzhiks^ 
merchants, dames of high degree surge in an 
overwhelming wave to kiss the feet of the saint, 
and place a candle opposite his shrine. See there 
a peasant, grey with eighty years, bending his 
aged head to sweep with silvery locks the sacred 
floor, and tottering with the strain. Sobs fill the 
incense-laden air, and wailing women, holding 
babes in their arms, worship and weep. The 
vocal strains break forth once more, and the 



28o THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

throng is again silent, while it moves slowly 
towards the Ikonostas to partake of the holy 
wine. Then the massive doors of the church 
are thrown open, and the mass is ended. 

No book on Russia's Peasantry would be com- 
plete without a mention of that dissenting sect, 
termed the Raskolnik, from the Russian word 
Raskoldchevat, "to cut away" — the Raskolnik 
having cut himself off from the Orthodox Church 
in the reign of Alexis, the father of Peter the 
Great, being unable to reconcile their faith with 
the reforms in the ancient Holy Books made by 
Nikon, the High Priest. Further points of con- 
tention were the methods of celebrating the 
ceremonial — how many fingers should be used in 
making the Cross? how many Alleluias were 
correct? how the Cross should be made — with 
four branches or with eight? how should the 
name of Jesus be spelt? 

The sect was born in the izba — that is to say, 
in the very cradle of ignorance and blind super- 
stition. It was not born of thought or literary 
or theological knowledge — it was the child of a 
firm and obstinate belief in the traditions handed 
down to them. To-day, amongst the Russian 



RUSSIA'S POISON 281 

peasantry we find eighteen to twenty million 
RaskolnikSy the sect having increased notwith- 
standing the terrible persecution, reign after reign, 
to which it has been subjected until lately. Exile, 
persecution, death, from century to century have 
been its lot, but still it lives, although its inward 
spirit is only one of superstition. 

" Scratch a Russian and find a Tartar." Scratch 
a Raskolnik, and find the darkest ignorance and 
absolute lack of knowledge as to the why and 
wherefore of his creed. I have often asked 
Raskolniks why they are Raskolniks, and the 
answer in most cases was : " I do not know, Barin ; 
my fathers were, and so am I." There is the 
only reason : lack of individuality and initiative. 
Gorboonoff, the talented Russian author, writes in 
1888: 

"The Raskolnik is enclosed in strong walls, 
which effectually shut him in from the outside 
world and prevent his eyes seeing or his ears 
hearing. Ancient tradition, of which he knows 
only the ceremonial, constitutes his faith ; remove 
the walls, and the sect stands exposed a hollow 
sham. The ignorance of the peasantry alone 
maintains it. Illumine this nest of obscurity with 
the light of truth, and it stands exposed to all 



282 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

and each as the essence of frivolity and meaning- 
less emptiness." 

The Russian Government has during the last 
three months promulgated a Decree permitting 
the sect freedom of action ; but it must be said 
that, from the point of view of education of the 
peasant morally, socially, and intellectually, it 
were better far that the sect were not in exist- 
ence. Its members are fairly steady, industrious, 
and more temperate than their brethren of the 
Orthodox church ; but there is engendered through- 
out the cult an inborn hatred of the manners of 
the West and of Western importations of every 
kind, which acts as an effectual bar to intellectual 
progress and reform and individual thought. 
Quoting again M. Gorboonoff: 

" Total darkness ! Let the light of God shine 
and expose all the emptiness, all the lawlessness ! 
Outside restraints ! what strong walls surround this 
fortress of religion : inside ! — nothing but empti- 
ness ! Hence — light, more light ! " 

But first feed them, then teach them ; ignorance 
deprives them of the ability even to feed them- 
selves. Glance for a moment at their methods 
of agriculture. They are antique, and their 



RUSSIA'S POISON 283 

implements fit objects for archseological museums. 
Nor will they ever use other weapons till Educa- 
tion reaches them. It is true they are too poor 
as individuals to indulge in high farming, but the 
fact remains that the vast majority have no wish 
to attempt better methods of agriculture, and 
certainly have not the knowledge necessary to 
work intelligently with other tools than those they 
have at present, and which they have had for 
hundreds of years. There is an intelligent body 
of peasantry in Russia — the concentrated sap of 
Russia's hundred millions ; but this body I shall 
allude to later. 

What is the agricultural year? It begins with 
the melting of the snow in April. Immediately 
this has disappeared, indeed before it has vanished, 
the buds appear on the trees and plants, and the 
green grass springs up as with the magic touch 
of a fairy wand. 

On 17th April — St Stephen's Day — the cattle 
are driven into the green fields, the poor animals 
looking woebegone and emaciated after the semi- 
starvation they have undergone during the seven 
long winter months. The ceremony of driving 
the cattle out for the first time is marked by 



284 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

the bestowal of benedictions by the priest, and 
the sprinkling of holy water. About the same 
period also the blessing of the water, relieved of 
its winter ice, takes place — the sister ceremony 
of benediction to that which takes place in 
winter when the rivers and streams first become 
coated with ice. 

Ploughing takes place on St George's Day — 
22nd April — and the land is made ready for 
the summer grain. This toil provides them with 
work till the end of May. Then the fallow field 
is prepared for the winter grain. This lasts till 
St Peter's Day — 29th June — when the hay- 
making begins. Harvest commences about the 
middle of July, generally St Elijah's Day — 20th 
July — until 31st August; and after having com- 
pleted his reaping and stacking during that 
period, he sows the winter grain for the next 
year. September — about the end — sees the 
peasants' labour ended, and on ist October 
is celebrated the Harvest Festival. Winter's 
approach is then near, and the cold snows are 
soon to descend and cover the earth and the 
peasant's izba^ and freeze even the little energy 
of which he is capable. To most of the peasantry 



RUSSIA'S POISON 285 

it is a seven months' sleep, seven months of sloth 
abetted, one might almost say decreed, by the 
Church. 

Taking it all in all, then, the position of the 
Church in the Russian village to-day is an un- 
natural one, and useless as a factor for moral 
or intellectual good, and untenable both for 
priest and people. And the effect of this effete 
priestly regime on the uneducated, ignorant 
millions of Russia's peasantry — the effect of 
these superstitions saturating the peasants' soul, 
and zealously propagated from year to year, from 
century to century, by the parish pope — the 
effect of hundreds of years of serfdom and slavish 
obedience to men who classified a human being 
and a dog in the same category — what is it 
seen to be to-day? 

The answer may be summed up in two words 
— Ignorance and Melancholy ! For where can 
one find people so melancholy as the Russian 
peasant of to-day? Remove from him the 
causes I have enumerated, and there still exist 
all the conditions which make for Melancholy 
and a morbid mind fit to receive with greedy 
voracity all that might tend to satisfy the peculiar 



286 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

form of sympathy which is the crying need of 
the Russian peasant. Vast steppes, vast forests — 
Russia is a world of emptiness and solitude, of 
weird melancholy — a world which, combined 
with the life the peasant has lived, and inherited 
from his forefathers, has not only been the direct 
cause of the formation of his morose, depressed, 
and sad nature, but has continued to this hour 
as the prominent feature in the fostering of it. 
Autocracy in the past has annihilated him, 
aristocracy has assisted in the process, and the 
Church has compressed him in her encircling 
coils with a force which has proved irresistible. 

The peasant emerges from the ordeal to-day 
but the semblance of a man — a thing with half 
a mind ; a mortal without attributes ; a morbid 
being blessed with life alone, and cursed with 
ignorance and imbecility until, in the twentieth 
century, the melancholy has become innate. Let 
a Russian but rise superior to his surroundings, 
and, imbibing an intelligence with which the 
condition of his birth had not provided him, 
breathe the feelings of his soul in poetry or 
prose, what is the sentiment there laid bare? 
Melancholy ! Listen to the peasant chanting 



RUSSIA'S POISON 287 

his evening paean in the solitude of his izba^ 
his daily labour done. What is the burden of 
his song ? Melancholy ! Go where you will, 
what is the nature predominant amongst all? 
Melancholy! What can one expect otherwise? 

And added to the factors enumerated above as 
the cause of this national attribute, periods of 
famine crowd upon one another in merciless and 
ever-increasing frequency. At this very moment 
Russia is gripped in Famine's deathly grasp. 
Over a small area of Russia's surface (never- 
theless more than five times the size of France) 
the people are dying in thousands. I apologise to 
Mr Victor Marsden of Moscow, whose knowledge 
of Russia and Russian affairs is, perhaps, unrivalled 
amongst Englishmen to-day, for quoting here at 
length from a recent article of his. He says : — 

"The economy of Russia is so arranged that 
it is no help to the starving peasant if his wealthy 
neighbour, the large landed proprietor — upon whose 
vast corn-lands he labours so many days per con- 
tract in payment for a few acres rented to him — 
has a magnificent harvest. The wealthy landowner 
enriches the soil with his capital, and gets harvests 
which are denied to the peasant, who never had 
any capital, and is always years behindhand with 



288 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

his taxes. Moreover, the peasant does not eat the 
grain bought in London. He never sees wheat 
bread, white bread of any kind ; what he eats is 
black bread — rye bread. The grain bought in 
London is, economically speaking, grown to pay 
the Government's debts to the foreign loan-monger, 
and must be sent out of the country to save the 
country from bankruptcy. The Government takes 
very good care — famine, 'local scarcity,' notwith- 
standing — that every available ounce of grain shall 
reach the foreign buyer, and calls it a prosperous 
year when the largest possible quantities are sold 
to pay interests on its debts abroad. The news- 
papers are forbidden to mention the word * famine,' 
and local governors report a little ' local scarcity ' 
to headquarters, and there the matter ends — or 
did end, until this wave of * freedom ' came over 
the country, and the Czar encouraged his people 
to speak their minds more freely. Oh yes ! of 
course the Government conducts vast relief opera- 
tions. It collects from the muzhik every year a 
special tax to pay for relief in times of 'local 
scarcity.' In the good old days this tax was 
collected in kind ; the muzhiks of every village 
had their grain magazine, into which they collected 
annually after every harvest a store sufficient to 
see them through in food and seed-corn for the 
next harvest. But the Government many years 
ago abolished the grain magazines on the spot. 
Why? Well, there are plenty of good reasons to 
be found in political economy as practised in 



RUSSIA'S POISON 289 

Russia. The main reason was that grain did not 
grow in store, while the money tax, which was 
substituted for the grain magazines, all went to 
Petersburg, and whether the gold grew and 
multiplied there or not there is no knowing ; but 
as things turned out, the muzhik gets neither gold 
nor grain nowadays. The grain is not there, 
and the gold filters down from St Petersburg 
through so many, so very many, hands of rapacious 
and irresponsible officials. All Russia lives on the 
muzhik^ and a famine — a real famine like the 
present one — is nearly as great a God-send to a 
certain class of Government servants as a war 
is to others. Yes, there are 40,000,000 people 
now starving in Russia, and the winter is but 
just begun, the next harvest seven or eight months 
off. The seed-corn is eaten, and the ploughing 
horse is mostly eaten also. Fodder and root crops 
have failed as utterly as bread-stuffs, and there is 
no help. Russia has no roads and very few rail- 
ways, and unless the carrying is done at certain 
seasons of the year, no mortal aid can avail. The 
money for relief was issued by the Treasury many 
months ago, but the grain to feed the famishing 
Russian is still being collected many hundreds of 
miles away from where it is wanted, and long after 
Russian grain has reached the British market, 
where there is no question of famine to be met. 
It is no new story : the same process is observable 
in the ^%'g and butter trade, all of which bring in 
vast sums to the Government at the cost of the 

T 



290 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

health and well-being of the muzhik. The richest 
land in the Empire, the granary of Europe that 
once was, is becoming yearly more and more 
remarkable for the deterioration of its people. 
Fat, grain-growing provinces of the Volga basin, 
for example, show a steadily increasing physical 
degeneration of the people. The recruiting returns 
in these provinces tell the tale pretty plainly. 
The percentage of rejections for physical defects 
in a purely agricultural population has doubled 
in the past twenty years ; the percentage of those 
put back as still immature at the usual age has 
also about doubled ; the growth of population is 
slowest and the death - rate highest in the very 
provinces that feed the foreigner. For more than 
a year past every private or local public effort to 
bring relief to the districts that were known a 
year ago to be threatened with famine, has been 
met by Government orders to arrest and imprison 
all and sundry found meddling with the peasants, 
on the suspicion that they were political propo- 
gandists. Children die like flies, doctors are few, 
and medicines practically unknown. In most of 
the stricken provinces there is neither bread nor 
money ; the people are helpless as only men can 
be in the Russian Empire, unable to move from 
the scene that brings certain death. There are 
no roads, and no horses left fit to transport either 
workers or food. There is no country in the world 
except Russia that could ever drift into such a 
situation, and no peasantry in the world would 



RUSSIA'S POISON 291 

take death so quietly as the Russian has been 
taught by his Government to do for a generation 
past." 

True words these — without garnish, and from 
the pen of one who knows Russia like a book, 
better than the Russians themselves. Then again 
I ask, what wonder that Melancholy is king? 
But if Melancholy is universal, is Ignorance 
the same? No! Scattered amidst Russia's vast 
peasant population are many who have risen 
superior to their surroundings, who have recognised 
and themselves endeavoured to remedy the state 
of slough amidst which they have been brought 
up, and in which their intellect has been sunken. 
These men — some young, some middle-aged, 
some patriarchal — have striven hard to educate 
themselves by writing and reading, in order to fit 
themselves to take the positions intended for 
them as men — the backbone of a great race 
that is to be. They form to-day, although a 
painfully small minority amidst the masses, a 
body of intelligent men — strong, morally, mentally, 
and physically, and essentially fitted to undertake 
the labours that they have taken upon themselves 
to accomplish — that of instructing their degraded, 
retrograde brethren. 



292 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

I have met many of them, especially in Central 
Russia, and never can I banish from my memory 
a scene I was fortunate enough to witness at the 
beginning of last year in one of the provinces of 
European Russia. I had been privately notified 
that a meeting of peasantry, drawn from all parts 
of Russia, would take place at a certain spot, to 
discuss the Peasant question, and take measures 
for the drawing up of proposals to be submitted 
to the authorities, which proposals it was hoped, 
if carried out, would lead to measures of reform 
of a practical nature amongst their less enlightened 
brethren. 

The meeting had to take place in secret, and 
so it came about that one bitterly cold night 
saw me driving in a two-horse sleigh in the 
midst of a blinding snowstorm to the isolated 
spot chosen for the rendezvous. Never shall I 
forget it ! My driver, Anton Antonovitch, a 
starosta of a large village which shall be name- 
less, a man of great intelligence — his keen, deep- 
lined face peering from amidst his long lank 
grey hair, from which and from his snow-en- 
crusted beard hung innumerable dangling icicles 
— leaning forward, and with excited gestures, 



RUSSIA'S POISON 293 

like a charioteer in the Olympian games of old, 
urging the struggling horses forward. 

It was an experience of which every detail is 
vivid in my memory to-day ! Suddenly we drew 
up by the side of a huge barn, in the midst of 
a bleak, snow-white, wind-swept prairie, miles from 
the nearest habitation. Anton knocked loudly on 
the great doors, and a man emerged to take the 
sleigh and exhausted horses to a shed close by. 
Then entering, my friend rained a shower of 
blows on another door within. The echoes had 
barely died away amongst the rafters before the 
clang of an iron bar being drawn aside struck 
our ears, and the next moment the huge doors 
opened from within, disclosing, to my astonished 
gaze, a scene which will remain indelibly painted 
on my mind. 

At the first glimpse there flashed across my 
mind the well-known picture depicting our Lord's 
Last Supper in Galilee. It was a wooden building 
of enormous size, and had evidently been used 
in days gone by for the storage of straw in winter ; 
and down the centre of the huge barn — whose 
lofty roof, crossed and recrossed with massive 
beams seasoned by the hand of Time, re-echoed 



294 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

the stifled hum of a multitude of whispering 
voices — ran a large rude table formed of boards 
resting on empty barrels. The dim light shed 
by two long candles placed at the table's head 
alone saved the situation from utter darkness, 
and illumined faintly but with weird effect the 
rugged profiles of the muttering peasant throng, 
the shadows deepening on every face, till out of 
the far obscurity of the shed, gleaming eyes, 
glistening with the reflected rays of the distant 
light, alone revealed whence came the low, sup- 
pressed murmuring of a hidden multitude. 

The picture might well have been intended to 
represent a Biblical scene of old time, and the 
people the apostles and ancient patriarchs. Never 
have I seen a more sedate, more dignified body of 
men than the simple Russian peasantry, ranging 
in age from thirty to seventy, the majority bearded 
and endowed with highly intellectual features, 
their broad foreheads peeping prominently out 
from under the masses of long loose hair brushed 
negligently back behind the ears. All were dressed 
in the universal long sheepskin ; and the whole 
formed a scene the like of which can have rarely 
been given any artist, ancient or modern, to paint. 



RUSSIA'S POISON 295 

On our entry an aged peasant of dignified 
appearance, the President of the gathering, rose 
from his seat at the head of the table between 
the two long candles, and bid us welcome. A 
seat was then provided me on the right of the 
chair, and the proceedings began. I will but give 
the gist of the opening address, and one or two 
of the resolutions arrived at. 

The President, rising amidst a dead silence and 
speaking in solemn earnest, said "My brothers, 
we are met here to form a League, and discuss 
measures which shall enable us and our brethren 
throughout this poor, oppressed land of Russia to 
fight the battle of freedom, and to think, act, and 
live as free men. I ask you to devote yourselves 
to-night and from to-night to the attaining of 
that object, and may the great God above help 
us in His goodness and mercy." Then followed 
much discussion, and I append in brief certain 
resolutions : 

I. That this Society be formed to discuss and 
carry out the best means of defending our Peasant 
rights, and bringing before His Majesty the Tzar, 
our rulers, our fellow-peasants, and the Russian 
people the following facts : 



296 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

{a). We demand freedom of speech, freedom to 
read and write, freedom and the facilities 
to learn and educate ourselves. We swear 
to work together to obtain these rights. 

(b). We were made free by our Father the Tzar 
in 1 86 1, and we demand that efforts be 
made to bestow real freedom upon us in 
the true sense of the word. 

There were many other resolutions of an 
equally strong character, and I must say some 
which, to my mind, were too violently worded, 
and breathed a spirit too unbridled, too unstates- 
manlike and undiplomatic, to be of great service 
to the Peasant Cause. But there was in this 
gathering, as in all gatherings, an excited element, 
and there were many minds over which brood- 
ing melancholy and an inborn feeling of dis- 
content, fostered in their breasts through years 
of striving to improve their condition, held sway. 
Serious as these men were, they were yet un- 
schooled in the art of suave diplomatic phrasing, 
and their thoughts were expressed accordingly. 

Be these facts as they may, I feel that my 
readers will not fail to be interested in this brief 
account of a meeting of Russian peasantry, 
giving, as it does, an idea of what material 



RUSSIA'S POISON 297 

there is to be found even amidst the crude, 
uncultured hordes of Russia's rural population. 

And is the Government endeavouring to help 
these people who help themselves ? Let us turn 
for a few facts regarding this point to an article 
in the Times of this month, it being noted that 
the opening of the new Russian Duma is near 
at hand, and the Bureaucracy do not wish to 
have "undesirables" in the Russian Parliament, 
for they might act so inconveniently for Bureau- 
cracy. Then let us see what this Russian gentle- 
man says, writing in the Times: 

" The Minister of Ways and Communications 
has decreed that 'no railway employees must be 
allowed to neglect their duties on election days.' 
This means that over 100,000 railwaymen will be 
deprived of the right to vote. A fine of looo 
roubles is imposed on employers who pay strikers 
wages for days of strike. Union leaders have been 
arrested wholesale, and governors of provinces have 
been given discretionary powers to expel any un- 
desirable people from their province (and to class 
all unemployed people as undesirables). Result : 
the Governor issues orders to employers through 
his police subordinates to dismiss disaffected 
employees, who accordingly become unemployed, 
and as such cannot vote. In one week (14th to 



298 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

2 1 St November 1906) ten papers were suppressed 
in various provinces, seven had one issue con- 
fiscated, eight more were prosecuted ; three editorial 
offices were searched, and three printing-offices 
were closed. Of the Labour members of the last 
Duma, ten are in prison, nine are in hiding in 
Russia, four escaped abroad, two are in exile, and 
one is in a madhouse. Of six clerical members 
who took to preaching on subjects outside the cure 
of souls, one was arrested, and one excommuni- 
cated, while all ex-members who held municipal 
offices, or posts under municipal boards, have been 
dismissed under Government instructions by their 
respective Zemstvos and municipalities. The ex- 
members of noble rank have also not been 
neglected. Thirteen have had their names struck 
off the lists of provincial nobility by their pro- 
vincial assembli^, a penalty which deprives them 
of all political rights." 

Thus has the Government helped budding 
intelligence, and aided the peasant hordes and 
artisans of the towns to take an interest in the 
affairs of the country. Then when will the 
peasant arrive at that point where it will be 
able to sweep aside the efforts of a retrograde 
Bureaucracy, take part in the deliberations of 
their country, and freely indulge in education, 
culture, and all that leads to intellectual advance- 



RUSSIA'S POISON 299 

ment? Let me quote in answer that same French 
writer (the author of the Secret Memoirs of the 
Court of Catherine II.) from whose dicta I have 
before drawn. Says he, writing a hundred years 
ago: 

"If, as some pretend, the French Revolution 
be destined to spread over the globe, Russia will 
assuredly be the last place it will reach. It will be 
the combat of Day against Night, the last conflict 
of Philosophy and Reason against Barbarism and 
Ignorance. There is no likelihood that a revolu- 
tion after the French model should break out in 
Russia as yet, but there may be one for which 
it is already ripe — that of a more enlightened 
aristocracy. It must be confessed that the friend 
of Russia and of Liberty cannot wish for a change 
of any other sort at present — it is the only one 
of which this vast empire is susceptible. The 
people, in the deplorable condition in which they 
are, are unfit for liberty ; they must be prepared 
for it, they must be brought to desire it before it 
be offered them. They would abuse it, or, what 
is more horrible, they would reject it. It may be 
said with truth that the Russian Government is 
less inclined to tyranny than the people are prone 
to slavery. With them, therefore, nothing can 
be done at present. The most flattering hope 
which Russia can entertain is that she may see 
one day on the throne an emperor sufficiently 



300 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

wise and great to give it laws to which he him- 
self will submit, a prince of such magnanimity 
as to be ashamed to reign inglorious over a 
people destitute of rights, and who may be capable 
of forming from the summit of his throne a gentle 
and easy descent to arrive at freedom without a 
fall. Under a new system of Government, Russians 
might prepare themselves for that grand revolution 
of the human mind, for which some think them 
already susceptible. Liberty and the happiness 
of mankind can only be accomplished facts when 
the people shall be prepossessed in favour of 
sound principles of Government. It is to be feared 
that Russia is yet ages from prepossessions of that 
nature! Take heart, then, Russians of the old 
regime^ who have trembled at the progress of the 
French Revolution. Before you arrive at that 
dreaded regeneration, you have still to pass through 
all the stages of civilisation. A nation must be 
polished before it can be informed ; yours is yet 
in its infancy. Before it can come to a reasonable 
Government, it must have had kings ; you have 
as yet had only autocrats. Do you fear a con- 
stitution? You have not yet laws. Do you 
dread a National Assembly? You have not yet 
a Parliament. At last, however, the memorable 
epoch will arrive in Russia and elsewhere. The 
progress of liberty is like that of Time — slow but 
sure — and some day will reach the North." 

Memorable words these, spoken just one hundred 



RUSSIA'S POISON 301 

years ago. What may be said in comparing that 
statement of a century ago with the situation 
to-day? One thing is certain, that the masses, 
that is the great majority of Russia's peasantry, 
are absolutely unfit to be entrusted with any form 
of responsibility in connection with the Govern- 
ment of the country. They have yet to be 
educated, yet to be made individuals of ordinary 
intelligence, yet to arrive at the dignity of man- 
hood. 

Let me conclude with the combined wail and 
paean of an old Raskolnik^ above his fellows in 
education and intelligence, and therefore exiled 
thirty years ago to beyond the Urals. I have 
endeavoured to translate into English verse the 
pathetic lines of the old peasant poet, exiled from 
home, from family, and his village in far-away 
Western Russia. 

MISERY. 

Was it for this, that God's light flattered me, 

An exile, spurned, sunken in deepest sorrow. 
Only to know man's venomed calumny 

Will pierce my soul afresh on each fresh morrow ? 
Dark the horizon ! sits forbidding gloom, 

A hopeless melanch'ly, on yon day dawning, 
Fear grips my heart, the seal of coming doom 

Stamps on my soul the dread of morrow's morning 



302 THE RUSSIAN PEASANT 

Was it for this that God's light flattered me ? 
^^ Hot stream the tears across my careworn cheeks. 

^ Shall Youth's young dream of happiness quite shattered be ? 

Oh God ! 'tis false ; a Voice within me speaks : 

JOY. 

Speaks ! and lo the future is unfolded — 

Beckon me the woods to come and play, 
Frolic in their depths in sweet oblivion, 

Scatter darkness with the light of day. 
Wander in the wilds amidst the roses, 

Listen to the whispering of the brooks, 
Hear the nightingale at even warbling, 

Sleep, 'midst the mossy bedded nooks. 
There, in solitude with Nature, 

The caves my covering, the Sun my heat, 
Beasts shall be to me as brethren, 

Rags my clothing, bare shall be my feet. 
Hills, shedding tears of joy eternal, 

Weep in never-ending stream. 
Lazily the rugged rocks o'er-leaping 

Music to my life-long dream. 
There sweet repose will never leave me, 

Far from Wickedness and Vice, 
Waiting until God's voice call me 

Home — to Peace and Paradise ! 

Thus sings the old peasant, and I am sure it 
will be the fervent wish of all my readers, as it 
is mine, that all Russia's Peasantry will attain to 
Peace in this world and Paradise in the next. 

THE END. 



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